Urbex & Social Media
Posted: Mon Jun 30, 2025 2:21 pm
Urban exploring and social media have never really mixed well. I think everyone can agree that its a great connection tool and a good centralized way to stay in touch with what we have going on. In the world of urbex though, it brings more negatives than positives. It ruins spots, causes drama, draws additional heat and security, and can endanger the community. If you're still new to urbex, it might be hard to understand how posting urbex content directly causes the things we mentioned; but trust us, it happens more than you think.
When it comes to posting your urbex adventures online, we ask that you look over the below guidelines and ensure that you're staying within our defined ethics. As a KCUE member, you should be vigilant and do your due diligence in keep your friends in check, regardless of the platform. We're all learning and growing, and sometimes mistakes are made unintentionally, so make sure that when you reach out to another member to be as respectful as possible and talk to them how you'd like to be talked to.
KCUE Core/Admin members are no longer policing members' social media; any time we intervened as a unified group in the past, it was met with resentment and criticism. This is why we are moving towards a community self-governance approach.
Cloutbexing/"toy"-posting/etc:
KCUE is part of what many call "the underground community", meaning that we operate in the shadows. We don't scream from the rooftops about what we're doing, how we're breaking the law, and revealing how we knowingly ignored the trespassing signs on our way in. While urbex has elements of documentary journalism in it, there are right and wrong ways to publicize what we do. Cloutbexing, "toy"-posting, or whatever you'd like to call it, is the practice of posting everything publicly, exploring recklessly (crowbarring, smash-and-grab style exploring, etc.) and/or exposing the spot through multiple means in the process. Many of the people engaged in this behavior are very much "I got my shots, so idgaf about what happens to the spot tomorrow" or "I need to be the first to post this because I want to be viewed as being cool to strangers".
Cloutbexing behavior always ends up pissing people off and not just in our underground community; we've seen it affect the cloutbexer communities as well. If you're engaged in posting things on a public account to strangers, and are also wondering why certain people won't engage or share with you, you might analyze your online behavior first.
Public vs. Private
If you are determined to post your urbex activity online, you should ask yourself the following questions:
Are your accounts public or private? Who is following you currently?
If you're posting urbex content to your personal account whether or not its public or private, we recommend that you create a brand new private account with its own pseudonym separate from you. Once you have a private account, only add people that you 100% trust. This means vetting your friends. Don't accept a follow request from users you haven't met or don't know very well. You'd be surprised how many people are looking for freebies, screenshotting your posts and stories and sending them to group chats to try and figure out where you were. Taggers, building owners, cops, security, scrappers, and cloutbexers are all on social media and are looking for over-trusting explorers that over expose their locations.
You should also avoid trusting in "disappearing post" platforms like Snapchat as well; these are often screenshotted and spread across group chats.
Don’t reveal the location
This should be a "no shit" type of rule but not everyone understands this right away. We shouldn't be making it easier than necessary for people to find a location unless its completely renovated or demolished. Never give out the full name, address and/or coordinates to a location online and be sure that your photos are not geo-tagged. Vague regions are generally ok to give in the description, like "central-midwest" for example. But only use this for locations that are "well-known", meaning the spot is blown out, tagged up, and appears to be known to the general public.
Its also worth mentioning that not everything is worth posting. "Holy Grail", pristine, or untouched spots are rare these days and posting the spot online right away can have dire consequences. If you hate people who trash spots, do your part to keep spots clean and safe from the rotten eggs! You should also ensure that your images are not reverse searchable through Google Lens or other platforms; you may be exposing the spot without even knowing it!
Don’t reveal your entry
Like a magician, revealing how you got it spoils the surprise. If a window on the second floor is the only way to get a door open for your friends, it might be best to not publicize to the world that the window is open. We've watched plenty of our sneaky entries get sealed because of folks carelessly sharing entry points online. Regardless whether you found an unlocked door, climbed, unlocked, lockpicked, or bypassed, don't share it online or in chats. Sometimes the mystery should stay that way.
Delay your posts
Delaying your posts is a great way to find a middle ground in the general community when it comes to posting new spots. If you want to maintain a public account, this is how you can do that without upsetting anyone or risking your freedom. We don't want to "live-tweet", stream, or post a spot on social media right after doing it; not only is it stupid from a legal perspective, but its exposing the spot in the name of "being first". No one cares if you were first to do anything; in the words of a great photographer friend of mine:
"Who cares if you shot it first? What really matters is who shot it better!"
Different locations can have different timeframes, it really depends on what it is and its risk level. If you are unsure, just ask a trusted member of the community. Some explores will sit on photos/videos until the Statute of Limitations runs out or even until a spot is completely gone.
Privacy is important
With us all descending into deviant behavior at a variety of levels, its really important that we use our anonymity and privacy to our advantage. Don't post any identifying information about yourself, your friends, faces, license plates, the spot, paperwork, or even those SSNs you found in a file cabinet. Always double and triple check your posts before you click "upload"; sometimes the information is less obvious than you think. Consent is always very important so be sure to ask people in your posts before you upload them to the internet. Blurring apps are also plentiful in the app stores and for PC/Mac, theres no reason to not take advantage of those tools! Laziness is not an excuse!
The reason why privacy is so important is because there are a lot of bad actors and adversaries that watch social media for certain things. Scrappers, taggers, vandals, and arsonists, just to name a few, are constantly on social media looking for their next spot to target; don't make it easy for them!!! The cops, building owners, and security are also active online as well; surprising as that may be to the gen-z folks out there: yes there are old people on snapchat/instagram/etc. Because of this, you might see why its not the best idea to be screaming online, "HEY EVERYBODY! MY NAME IS <FIRST NAME> <LAST NAME>, I'M 20 YEARS OLD, STANDING AT THE CORNER OF 40TH AND MAIN, ABOUT TO BREAK INTO THIS BUILDING".
Protect the community
If you hang around our community for awhile, you might get access to private forums and chats where people feel comfortable sharing photos/videos or other information that they don't want posted publicly or shared with certain people. Please don't repost and/or share someone else's stuff without permission and credit. Would you be upset if someone stole a photo you took and posted it on their public account? Would you be pissed off if someone shared a code or key with someone who wasn't supposed to have it? Its just uncool m'kay?
We also don't want to attract unwanted attention to our platform; so please don't write things like "visit kcurbex.org" in bandos! We've had cops join the forum in the past because of that kind of behavior.
Policing each other
As mentioned earlier, the admins of KCUE used to be diligent in policing social media; we are no longer going out of our way to do that anymore. We want the community to police itself; meaning if you see something online that shouldn't be, reach out to that person and let them know. If they refuse to take it down, bring it to one of our Core members and we'll figure out how to proceed. This community is more of a friendship group than anything so be sure that when you reach out to other members, you do so in a learning opportunity capacity and not a "OMG YOU FUCKIN' IDIOT! WHY TF DID YOU THINK IT WAS OKAY TO POST THE PLANT?!?!?".
Just use your head
A lot of this could be just boiled down to asking yourself: “Could this post blow the spot or get someone in trouble?”. If the answer is yes, don’t post it! If you're unsure whether or not something is okay, be sure to ask someone in the community.
When it comes to posting your urbex adventures online, we ask that you look over the below guidelines and ensure that you're staying within our defined ethics. As a KCUE member, you should be vigilant and do your due diligence in keep your friends in check, regardless of the platform. We're all learning and growing, and sometimes mistakes are made unintentionally, so make sure that when you reach out to another member to be as respectful as possible and talk to them how you'd like to be talked to.
KCUE Core/Admin members are no longer policing members' social media; any time we intervened as a unified group in the past, it was met with resentment and criticism. This is why we are moving towards a community self-governance approach.
Cloutbexing/"toy"-posting/etc:
KCUE is part of what many call "the underground community", meaning that we operate in the shadows. We don't scream from the rooftops about what we're doing, how we're breaking the law, and revealing how we knowingly ignored the trespassing signs on our way in. While urbex has elements of documentary journalism in it, there are right and wrong ways to publicize what we do. Cloutbexing, "toy"-posting, or whatever you'd like to call it, is the practice of posting everything publicly, exploring recklessly (crowbarring, smash-and-grab style exploring, etc.) and/or exposing the spot through multiple means in the process. Many of the people engaged in this behavior are very much "I got my shots, so idgaf about what happens to the spot tomorrow" or "I need to be the first to post this because I want to be viewed as being cool to strangers".
Cloutbexing behavior always ends up pissing people off and not just in our underground community; we've seen it affect the cloutbexer communities as well. If you're engaged in posting things on a public account to strangers, and are also wondering why certain people won't engage or share with you, you might analyze your online behavior first.
Public vs. Private
If you are determined to post your urbex activity online, you should ask yourself the following questions:
Are your accounts public or private? Who is following you currently?
If you're posting urbex content to your personal account whether or not its public or private, we recommend that you create a brand new private account with its own pseudonym separate from you. Once you have a private account, only add people that you 100% trust. This means vetting your friends. Don't accept a follow request from users you haven't met or don't know very well. You'd be surprised how many people are looking for freebies, screenshotting your posts and stories and sending them to group chats to try and figure out where you were. Taggers, building owners, cops, security, scrappers, and cloutbexers are all on social media and are looking for over-trusting explorers that over expose their locations.
You should also avoid trusting in "disappearing post" platforms like Snapchat as well; these are often screenshotted and spread across group chats.
Don’t reveal the location
This should be a "no shit" type of rule but not everyone understands this right away. We shouldn't be making it easier than necessary for people to find a location unless its completely renovated or demolished. Never give out the full name, address and/or coordinates to a location online and be sure that your photos are not geo-tagged. Vague regions are generally ok to give in the description, like "central-midwest" for example. But only use this for locations that are "well-known", meaning the spot is blown out, tagged up, and appears to be known to the general public.
Its also worth mentioning that not everything is worth posting. "Holy Grail", pristine, or untouched spots are rare these days and posting the spot online right away can have dire consequences. If you hate people who trash spots, do your part to keep spots clean and safe from the rotten eggs! You should also ensure that your images are not reverse searchable through Google Lens or other platforms; you may be exposing the spot without even knowing it!
Don’t reveal your entry
Like a magician, revealing how you got it spoils the surprise. If a window on the second floor is the only way to get a door open for your friends, it might be best to not publicize to the world that the window is open. We've watched plenty of our sneaky entries get sealed because of folks carelessly sharing entry points online. Regardless whether you found an unlocked door, climbed, unlocked, lockpicked, or bypassed, don't share it online or in chats. Sometimes the mystery should stay that way.
Delay your posts
Delaying your posts is a great way to find a middle ground in the general community when it comes to posting new spots. If you want to maintain a public account, this is how you can do that without upsetting anyone or risking your freedom. We don't want to "live-tweet", stream, or post a spot on social media right after doing it; not only is it stupid from a legal perspective, but its exposing the spot in the name of "being first". No one cares if you were first to do anything; in the words of a great photographer friend of mine:
"Who cares if you shot it first? What really matters is who shot it better!"
Different locations can have different timeframes, it really depends on what it is and its risk level. If you are unsure, just ask a trusted member of the community. Some explores will sit on photos/videos until the Statute of Limitations runs out or even until a spot is completely gone.
Privacy is important
With us all descending into deviant behavior at a variety of levels, its really important that we use our anonymity and privacy to our advantage. Don't post any identifying information about yourself, your friends, faces, license plates, the spot, paperwork, or even those SSNs you found in a file cabinet. Always double and triple check your posts before you click "upload"; sometimes the information is less obvious than you think. Consent is always very important so be sure to ask people in your posts before you upload them to the internet. Blurring apps are also plentiful in the app stores and for PC/Mac, theres no reason to not take advantage of those tools! Laziness is not an excuse!
The reason why privacy is so important is because there are a lot of bad actors and adversaries that watch social media for certain things. Scrappers, taggers, vandals, and arsonists, just to name a few, are constantly on social media looking for their next spot to target; don't make it easy for them!!! The cops, building owners, and security are also active online as well; surprising as that may be to the gen-z folks out there: yes there are old people on snapchat/instagram/etc. Because of this, you might see why its not the best idea to be screaming online, "HEY EVERYBODY! MY NAME IS <FIRST NAME> <LAST NAME>, I'M 20 YEARS OLD, STANDING AT THE CORNER OF 40TH AND MAIN, ABOUT TO BREAK INTO THIS BUILDING".
Protect the community
If you hang around our community for awhile, you might get access to private forums and chats where people feel comfortable sharing photos/videos or other information that they don't want posted publicly or shared with certain people. Please don't repost and/or share someone else's stuff without permission and credit. Would you be upset if someone stole a photo you took and posted it on their public account? Would you be pissed off if someone shared a code or key with someone who wasn't supposed to have it? Its just uncool m'kay?
We also don't want to attract unwanted attention to our platform; so please don't write things like "visit kcurbex.org" in bandos! We've had cops join the forum in the past because of that kind of behavior.
Policing each other
As mentioned earlier, the admins of KCUE used to be diligent in policing social media; we are no longer going out of our way to do that anymore. We want the community to police itself; meaning if you see something online that shouldn't be, reach out to that person and let them know. If they refuse to take it down, bring it to one of our Core members and we'll figure out how to proceed. This community is more of a friendship group than anything so be sure that when you reach out to other members, you do so in a learning opportunity capacity and not a "OMG YOU FUCKIN' IDIOT! WHY TF DID YOU THINK IT WAS OKAY TO POST THE PLANT?!?!?".
Just use your head
A lot of this could be just boiled down to asking yourself: “Could this post blow the spot or get someone in trouble?”. If the answer is yes, don’t post it! If you're unsure whether or not something is okay, be sure to ask someone in the community.