selfcurate

Selfcurate, also known as self-curation, is the practice of selecting, organizing, and presenting one’s own content, artifacts, or experiences for personal or public consumption. It encompasses digital domains such as social media profiles, blogs, portfolios, playlists, and digital archives, as well as offline efforts like personal libraries, photo albums, or zines. The core idea is intentional selection and arrangement rather than passive collection.

In contemporary digital culture, self-curation is used to shape personal or professional identity, establish credibility, and articulate a point of view. Choices about what to publish, highlight, or archive influence how others perceive expertise, interests, and values. Self-curation can be proactive, aligning content with career goals, or reflective, documenting learning and growth over time.

In art and museum contexts, the term can describe artists assembling and presenting their own bodies of work, or participatory projects in which audiences play a curatorial role. Some practitioners advocate for self-curation as a means of democratizing display and reducing gatekeeping, while critics warn of bias and censorship inherent in self-selected narratives.

Benefits include coherence, authenticity, and targeted communication; drawbacks include potential bias, selective memory, and the risk of echo chambers. Effective self-curation often involves clear criteria, regular updates, and transparency about selection choices.