The term “cursed” originates from tumblr. The blog cursedimages.tumblr.com was created in 2015, and the concept of the cursed image gained popularity with the launch of the Twitter account @cursedimages in 2016.
The first image posted to cursedimages.tumblr.com. To me it’s actually not very cursed.
Since then, the terms “blessed” and “blursed” have also surfaced, to denote something that is the opposite of cursed, or something in-between. Folks debate on reddit.com/r/blursedimages what qualifies something to be “blursed”.
Cursed is subjective. There is no final definition of what qualifies as "cursed" and what qualifies as "blessed". In fact, the word blessed is derived from the Germanic word blōtan which means "to sacrifice," as in, making a sacrifice to a deity in order to get something one is asking for (a blessing) or to punish one's enemies and thus curse them.¹ One's blessing is another's curse.
Cursed is defined by your context. This means your identity, your culture, and your life experiences define what you perceive to be cursed.
Cursed has become much bigger than just silly little images. Or at least, I’m proposing that it can be a tool to critique media using phenomenology.
Cursed is a study in phenomenology. "Phenomenology is the study of structures of consciousness as experienced from the first-person point of view."² If something is cursed to you, but not someone else, that is valid. It’s about trusting your feelings!
Cursed is unsettling. Some definitions of cursed that I like are "a cursed image is one that incites the five W's in a person (who, what, where, why, when, how)" or "an image that violates somebody's sense of world order, usually in a trivial way".
Cursed can be an act of pleasure. It is fun to talk about the utter absurdity of Cats (2019). Pleasure is a fundamental human need. "Desire and pleasure are two ways that we assert that there's something worth living for."³
Cursed can give us information about how to protect and care for ourselves. All feelings exist to give us information about how to protect our bodies, including discomfort. It can teach us about being better humans! By pointing out technologies that separate us, or that make us believe in the illusion of scarcity, for example, we can reorient ourselves in the right direction.
Cursed shows us what our needs are, as a community. For example, as we’re seeing how the TikTok algorithm changes our daily lives, we can take a moment and assess.