Daejeon, July 27–31
The COVID-19 pandemic shifted Filipino mourning into digital spaces as hospital visits were restricted and funeral rites were shortened or postponed (Baumgartner 2020). In the Philippines, where mourning is grounded in syncretic rituals and relational ties (Sabanpan-Yu 2009: 231–236), these disruptions intensified reliance on mediated forms of remembrance.
During prolonged lockdowns, digital platforms became central infrastructures of mourning (Cook 2021: 237). Practices in Sikolohiyang Pilipino—pakikipagkapwa-tao The view that self and other share an inner identity. (Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000, p. 56) Sympathizing with another (Venzon & Gopilan, 2023, p. 1) Sharing the burden of mourning (Venzon & Gopilan, 2023, p. 1)
This study examines Instagram as a digital gravesite where mourning is organized through platformed visibility and relational ethics.
Social media curation is commonly theorized as identity work in the attention economy governed by algorithmic visibility systems Third-party curators as human networks and curatorial code as platform architectures and algorithms (Davis, 2017, pp. 775–776) Productive curation refers to what people document, make, share, and with whom (Davis, 2017, p. 772). Consumptive curation is an active practice of looking and engagement through which networked individuals navigate pools of data in discriminating ways (Davis, 2017, p. 773).
This study intervenes through Filipino Instagram mourning, where curation departs from visibility optimization. Drawing on kapwa (Pe-Pua et al. 2000: 56), I argue that curation becomes relational care embedded in mourning practices.
On Instagram, decisions about posting, omission, captioning, and timing are shaped less by visibility logic than by moral obligations to the deceased and community (Leaver et al. 2020: 215).
This study builds on Davis’s model of curation as productive, consumptive, and third-party practices shaping visibility within the attention economy (2017: 772–774). In this framing, curation operates through optimization logics structured by algorithmic distribution systems that prioritize engagement and visibility as measurable outcomes.
I rework this through kapwa, where subjectivity is fundamentally relational rather than individual (Pe-Pua et al. 2000: 56). Within this reorientation, curation is understood as an extension of relational responsibility. Productive, consumptive, and third-party curation are reframed as stewardship, ethical witnessing, and delegated care, where algorithmic systems mediate temporal and relational visibility—shaping not only what is seen, but when and by whom it becomes ethically and socially legible.
Importantly, these reframing positions algorithmic systems as active participants in the organization of mourning temporality. Algorithmic time (feeds, reminders, resurfacing features) intersects with ritual time (anniversaries, novenas, calendrical remembrance), producing a layered temporality that must be navigated rather than passively received (Leaver et al. 2020: 33–35).
This shift is supported by McKeon’s concept of cura as relational care over time (2022), Reilly’s framing of visibility as ethically situated (2018), and Flores’s notion of adjacency as a method for preserving relational specificity without totalizing interpretation (2017; 2019). Together, these frameworks position curation as an ethical-relational practice in which care, time, and visibility are co-constructed through both cultural and infrastructural logics.
I adopt critical autoethnography as the methodological foundation of this study, understood as an approach that integrates personal experience with systematic analysis to understand cultural experience (Ellis et al. 2011: 273). I interlace my own pandemic grief with five semi-structured interviews (30–60 minutes) and Instagram artifacts—posts, captions, Stories, and Highlights—produced by Filipino millennials in Metro Manila during the 2020–2022 lockdowns.
Autoethnography is treated as both method and epistemological stance, operationalized through layered reflexive accounts that connect lived experience, interview data, and platform artifacts (Hughes et al. 2017: 11–13; Ellis et al. 2011: 278–279).
For analysis, I use inductive thematic coding and discourse analysis to examine how stewardship, ethical witnessing, and delegated care emerge through Instagram’s affordances and algorithmic shaping of visibility and temporality—conceptualized here as algorithmic time (Leaver et al. 2020: 33–35, 77–80). Platform artifacts are read as practices of relational curation and continuing bonds in mobile media (Hjorth 2021: 592–600), interpreted through adjacency as an analytic stance.
Ethically, the study follows AoIR 3.0 guidelines emphasizing relational consent, anonymization, data minimization, and ongoing participant review (franzke et al. 2020: 3–5, 9–11, 20–21).
Participants treated memorial posts as custodial acts oriented toward relational care. Rather than maximizing reach, they prioritized fidelity through symbolic imagery, selective withholding, and captions emphasizing personal qualities. Platform templates (filters, quote formats, emojis) were used to signal solemnity rather than visibility optimization (Leaver et al., 2020). These practices reflect pakikipagkapwa-tao, where presence is calibrated through shared relational understanding (Pe-Pua et al. 2000).
Audience engagement included condolence reactions, brief messages, Close Friends, and memorial Highlights, producing “right-sized publics” (Gibbs et al., 2015). Visibility was carefully calibrated to maintain relational boundaries guided by kapwa. Captions framed interpretation to prevent voyeurism, positioning engagement as ethical witnessing rather than consumption (Padilla et al. 2010).
Platform systems such as feed ranking and “Memories” acted as co-curators of mourning. Participants sometimes experienced misaligned resurfacing and rerouted reminders toward ritual calendars or private channels. Livestreamed wakes and novenas sustained mourning under lockdown, later transitioning back to embodied practices. This reflects temporally distributed care mediated by platforms (McKeon 2022; Leaver et al., 2020).
Home altars, candles, and prayer cycles were translated into Instagram posts and later returned to physical ritual space. Families constructed grief narratives through captions, hashtags, and anniversaries (Leaver et al., 2020). While platform visibility shaped mourning norms, participants mitigated performativity through audience filtering and ritual timing (Abidin, 2022).
This study challenges dominant accounts of social media curation that privilege visibility, identity performance, and attention optimization (Davis, 2017). It addresses gaps in digital mourning by showing that Western-centered framings of mourning as self-presentation do not fully account for culturally situated grief practices.
Through Filipino Instagram mourning, the study demonstrates that curation can be oriented toward relational continuity and ritual meaning-making. It reframes visibility as culturally negotiated rather than universal, shaped by relational frameworks.
This study is intensive rather than extensive, focusing on five Metro Manila millennials during 2020–2022 and is not intended for statistical generalization. Insider relationships may have influenced interpretation, mitigated through reflexivity, audit trails, and member checking (Jensen, 2002).
Platform opacity limits claims to user experience rather than technical systems (Leaver et al., 2020). Data reflect a shifting platform environment and required selective representation guided by reflexive and participant validation.
Theoretical: This study reframes social media curation from optimization to obligation—stewardship, ethical witnessing, and delegated care—grounded in kapwa and mapped onto platform affordances and temporalities (Pe-Pua et al. 2000: 49–57; McKeon 2022: 174–175, 181; Davis 2017: 770–779).
Empirical: It provides a description of Filipino Instagram mourning, showing how captions, visual templates, Highlights, Close Friends, and “Memories” translate ritual practices into platformed care and back into lived remembrance (Leaver et al. 2020: 19–21, 106–109, 186–187; Padilla et al. 2010: 105, 121).
Methodological: It develops a layered analytic protocol combining autoethnography, interviews, and platform artifacts to operationalize relational and indigenous ethics in digital research (Ellis et al. 2011: 273–280).
Applied/Pedagogical: It proposes grief-sensitive design and teaching frameworks—ritual calendars, solemnity modes, grief circles, and audience design practices—to support ethical platform literacy and culturally grounded moderation (Gibbs et al. 2015: 255–266; Pe-Puaet al. 2000: 59–62).
This study shows that Filipino millennials use Instagram to curate grief as relational care grounded in kapwa. Mourning is sustained through practices that privilege ritual continuity, ethical responsibility, and communal attunement over visibility metrics.
Reframing Davis’s model, productive, consumptive, and third-party curation are reconfigured as stewardship, ethical witnessing, and delegated care. Instagram becomes a temporal and relational infrastructure through which grief is paced and shared (Davis 2017; McKeon 2022).
Digital traces of loss are thus situated acts of relation shaped by cultural ethics and platform affordances (Leaver et al., 2020), rather than performances of visibility.