Are we all curators now? From the hotel chef offering an artfully curated cheeseboard to the fashion world’s curated capsule collections, the sound curators (DJs) and the luxury tour operators flogging seamlessly curated travel experiences – and don’t forget the curated (actually, algorithm-generated) lists from Substack – nowhere is safe from the scourge of the contemporary curator.
The actor Idris Elba sees himself less as a conventional musician, ‘more of a curator of music’. In 2023, he curated the Nigerian musician Fela Kuti’s Box Set 6, in case you’re not up to speed on your Afrobeat vibes. The American rapper and songwriter Kanye West identifies as an ‘inventor or maybe curator’, possibly not clocking they’re quite different things. He’s also into conceptual curation, whatever that is. Over at London’s ‘cultural hub’ Kings Place, the artist Michael Mwenso has been curating Soul Assembly, ‘where music meets conversation, and community comes alive’.
Partly borrowed from the French curatour, partly from the Latin curator (derived from curare, to care for), the English word has been with us, mostly innocuously, for several hundred years. The Oxford English Dictionary reckons the earliest evidence for ‘curator’ comes from around 1390, in the writing of the poet William Langland. By the mid-17th century, the word had acquired its more cultural and academic sense, meaning ‘the officer in charge of a museum, library or other collection’. And from ‘curator’ came ‘curate’, initially meaning ‘to provide a record of curation’, then, from the late 19th century, ‘to act as curator of’ – and, now, ‘to try, unsuccessfully, to make your banal list/project/whatever sound clever and discerning’ (© Marozzi 2026). From semantic drift it is a swift descent into the hellhole of meaninglessness.
‘Curates guard souls and curators guard precious objects,’ argues Stephen Bayley, co-founder of the Design Museum. He notes that the word curator once also denoted the professional carer of a lunatic. ‘Emotional disorders seem ever present in the use of the term. Like “iconic”, it is a word used with wince-making carelessness. And always a danger sign: self-professed curators of anything other than the collections in a museum or a gallery are people bound on a course of vulgar and ignorant self-promotion.’
Can we call time on it now? In 2012, the American writer Choire Sicha posted a blog titled: ‘You are not a curator, you are actually just a filthy blogger’. ‘As a former actual curator, of like, actual art and whatnot, I think I’m fairly well positioned to say that you folks with your blog and your Tumblr and your whatever are not actually engaged in a practice of curation,’ he ventured. ‘Call it what you like: aggregating? Blogging? Choosing? Copyright infringing sometimes? But it’s not actually curation, or anything like it.’
No, it isn’t, but still the wannabe curators come. In 2018, Mae Losasso, then a Cabinet Office intern, now a fellow in English and comparative literary studies at Warwick University, addressed the problem in a superb essay: ‘I curate, therefore I am: narcissism as curation in the digital age.’
‘Self-professed curators of anything other than the collections in a museum or a gallery are people bound on a course of vulgar and ignorant self-promotion’
Bloggers are among the worst offenders. Stephanie, a museum social media manager in San Francisco, wrote a piece last year on her Substack entitled: ‘How to reimagine, not fully reinvent, your closet.’ Among the pearls of wisdom: ‘Get off the internet. Curate an independent vibe. Wear what you love. Wear those things a lot. And stop worrying about outfit repeating.’ She forgot to say ‘Be kind.’
Tim Kuefler is a digital curator in Canada. ‘Timotheories’ (motto: ‘Digital curating at heart’) is ‘a platform no longer just about creating content, but fostering a vibrant community, nurturing creative passions and offering meaningful insights’. Much of it is meaningless. There’s a lot of waffle about ‘curating creativity’, ruminations on ‘the curator’s process: gathering with purpose’ and the revelation that ‘curation involves a mindful selection process’. One of Timotheories’ three key pillars is ‘Digitally curate your heart’. Do you mind if I skip that one, Tim?
It’s not just bloggers. The curatorial incontinence has leaked far more widely than that. Companies love curating. Curated Digital, a London digital marketing agency, claims to be ‘driving change that enhances your brand’. Would you want your brand associated with such drivel? The Wellesley Knightsbridge hotel boasts of its minibars: ‘We have meticulously curated our selection to ensure it remains luxurious and inclusive [what? why?], featuring… artisanal nuts, halal-friendly confectionery and organic vegan chocolates.’
Incidentally, when did you last see a carelessly curated selection? If curated travel isn’t sufficiently bespoke for you, try Beyond Curated, which is in the business of ‘Creating heirloom memories’. The training and HR world seems to have fallen for the guff as well. eLearning Industry, a publishing platform, talks of ‘curating winning learning pathways’. Good luck to everyone on the course. Meanwhile, my CleanMyMac app advises me to ‘apply curated recommendations’.
The rot has even spread to cricket in Australia. Spare a thought for Matthew Page, the Melbourne Cricket Ground ‘pitch curator’ (aka groundsman), who came under fire during the recent Ashes series for preparing a wicket which utterly bamboozled both English and Australian batsmen.
Regrettably, Cambridge University, which should know better, is in on the act, too. ‘Curating Cambridge showcases unique and intriguing high-quality gifts inspired by the diverse collections of the University of Cambridge, including art prints, accessories, homewares, puzzles, and stationery.’ A gift shop, in other words. Cut the flannel.
As the American writer Benjamin Dreyer, a retired copy editor, explains in Dreyer’s English: An Utterly Correct Guide to Clarity and Style: ‘This is what “curate” is not so good for: to portray what you’re doing when you’re organising a playlist of motivating songs for gym use, selecting smoked fishes for a brunch, or arranging displays of blouses, espadrilles and picturesque thrift-shop books at Anthropologie.’
When a buzzword becomes boring, it’s time to kill it. RIP the curator.
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