Five words sum up @somber.hour’s blood-red Instagram feed—”sick ♱ savage ♱ sinful 🥀 sad ♰ sensual 🥀”. It’s an apt description for the account’s blood-curdling content, seemingly foraged from the fiery pits of hell and ever treading the fine line between sordid and sexy. “I’m usually gravitated to darker more cerebral artistic images,” explains @somber.hour—”I began the account because I wasn’t seeing everything that I felt was out there or that truly resonated with me.”
Despite its contents meticulous curation—cherry-picked pictures of pain, passion and piety—@somber.hour claims thematic harmony was never actually the account’s intention. “I never sought out to have a theme in the images I post—but I came to realise that the images I am drawn to all inhabit a similar realm of sexuality, pain and longing.” It’s an affinity he shares with 13.4 thousand people, if his following is anything to go by. “I think people connect with it because our generation sexualises sadness—I think most people get on social media seeking a form of connection. And although we may be connecting with others virtually, the act of scrolling through your phone or computer is a very solitary act. I think it’s only natural for people to be drawn to those topics. Especially in the times we live in now, where being fully present and having real human connection is increasingly dwindling with rising technology.”
“people connect with it because our generation sexualises sadness…”
The account’s evocative title was chosen to embody the melancholic mood that many encounter when viewing its content. “Somber hour to me, is the time in the day that most people spend alone scrolling through social media, perhaps seeking connection with others through the virtual world of the internet.”
Drawing on a wealth of disparate sources to discover his diverse images—that range from occult artwork to fetish photography—somber.hour has cultivated a magnificently melancholic moodboard, an archive of anguish and artistry that’s as distasteful as it is titillating. Through Bob Mizer’s boundary-pushing homo-erotica and Raphael’s renaissance paintings, somber.hour treads the line between the repulsion and fascination.
Header image: @somber.hour Instagram via @agvstin
