On Saturday, a performance by artist who goes by the alias Aphex Redditor went viral on social media after she laid down and continually scrolled through Instagram Reels for 24 hours. But as the performance gained attention on Instagram and X, another artist, Qualeasha Wood, accused Aphex Redditor of copying a similar performance she had staged the year before.

In March 2025, Wood staged a performance called Attention Economy at London’s Pippy Houldsworth Gallery, whose release for the exhibition also explicitly invoked the term “bed rotting,” which refers to the act of staying in bed for prolonged periods of time without doing much at all. A screen showing a feed from Wood’s phone appeared alongside her. In September, she repeated the performance at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London.