A Timeline of the White Lily Society
A full overview of the story and topics covered so far. World domination in progress!!!
The White Lily Society officially started somewhere in ‘22, and has been going strong ever since. But that’s not where the story begins, and certainly not where it ends. This post will function as a running log of the White Lily Society: its history, notable events, milestones, etc. to be updated with the times. Simply because I think it’s fun to capture the Society’s lore in this way, to create our own mythos with time.
Do note that this post reads in reverse chronological order, ie. the latest events display at the top of the page, while the oldest are at the bottom.
This post was last updated: 9th of January, 2025
THE TIMELINE… MILESTONE SPEEDRUN
2024
October 26th - the White Lily Society celebrates its official two year anniversary!
August 1st - The 12k word (ie. bachelor-thesis length) “Death and the Maiden” post is released. The Substack turns one.
July 1st - For the very first time, the White Lily Society starts collecting submissions around a monthly theme: “Death and the Maiden”
June 22nd - The White Lily Society reaches 1000 society members on Instagram!
May 22nd - First submission published on the Substack
April 30th - The White Lily Society reaches 666 society members on Instagram!
April 25th - The White Lily Society reaches 100 subscribers on the Substack!
April 7th - The White Lily Society reaches 500 society members on Instagram!
April 3rd - After a few requests, submissions to the White Lily Society Substack officially open. Additionally, the White Lily Society acquires its own domain: www.thewhitelilysociety.com <3
April 2nd - [Notable: a society member reaches out saying they have purchased a white lily pin to wear around to show off their part in the society. Generally there were a lot of members expressing love for the society, which I found to be really deeply moving]
March 12th - [Notable: Julia Fox interacts with and likes a post on the White Lily Society that she is tagged in]
February - Flyers are printed, and the White Lily Society begins a sort of guerrilla marketing campaign, leaving leaflets in books and art stores, supplementing a near-constant stream of Instagram advertisements. [Notable: I meet my first Substack reader out in the wild]


QUICK FAQ
☆ Why the white lily?
The white lily, beyond being my personal favourite flower, has a double meaning across cultures, relevant to the Intersection of Love and Violence: it’s both a funeral flower, and a wedding flower. It’s symbolic of death, love (of all kinds), rebirth, purity, virginity, rejuvenation, and commitment.
☆ What does the motto “donec manus scribentus morte obstet” mean?
The motto is Latin for "until the hand that writes is stopped by death". It was taken from the Gothic novel "the Romance of the Forest" (1791) by Ann Radcliffe and chosen to be the motto because of its Gothic, intriguing symbolism, and because of its correspondence to the main WLS theme: the Intersection of Love and Violence
☆ What is the purpose of the White Lily Society?
The White Lily Society is dedicated to curating, inspiring, and spreading only the most esoteric knowledge related to the Intersection of Love and Violence. Beyond this, the White Lily Society wishes to democratise art education, platform small artists, and create a safe space for all sorts of art discussion, sans elitism. We think art and culture are more welcoming without stigma.
IT’S ALIVE!
2023
November 18th - The White Lily Society reaches 100 society members on Instagram!
November 16th - The first of many Instagram advertisements runs to spread awareness about the White Lily Society.
October 26th - the White Lily Society celebrates its official one year anniversary!
August 23rd - Username change to thewhitelilysociety.
August 1st - After toying with the idea for a while, the Substack newsletter and the official archive are launched side by side. The newsletter is meant to be a monthly collection of readings, esoteric knowledge, and other more personal rambles, while the archive will be a place for all kinds of resources to be collected in one place.
July 31st ~ August 14th - Right after announcing the upcoming launch of the Substack and Archive, the White Lily Society Instagram account is wrongfully suspended / banned for two painful, long weeks.


February 16th - The official White Lily Society playlist drops on Spotify.
February 5th - Start of daily posts on the account using the schedule feature.
January - I coin the term “Intersection of Love and Violence” while writing a personal essay, and the society gains focus from that point on.
Exact dates are quite vague for this time, but the realisation that the common thread in most of my interests was the “Intersection of Love and Violence” might have come around the 26th.
2022
December 16th - Username is changed to whitelily_society.
November 2nd - [Notable: Singer Kiki Rockwell comments on a write-up about her work, and follows the White Lily Society]
October 26th - The dead film account returns as whitelily_collective on a whim. The idea for some sort of collection of inspiration and references had been brewing for a while, with origins all the way in 2018 (back when it was intended to be a podcast called “Kinda Niche w/ Sabrina Angelina”— a space for me to ramble about my hyperfixations). The first three White Lily posts are made all on that first day in October.
THE LIMBO YEARS.
2017-2021
The account goes through many different usernames and uses 2017-2019 before becoming a film account called “sweetest_memories”. At one point in September of 2019 it is used for poetry purposes before going back to being a film account in November. This version of the account stays, inactive, until late 2022.
Fun Fact: at one point the White Lily would be a cult or secret society at the university I was studying at the time. The plan was to leave cryptic leaflets in library books urging people to “seek out the white lily” to join. Eventually, I figured the society could have meetings and elaborate rituals involving cloaks, candles, and salon-style discussions of literature (for which I went as far as to write meeting guides), though I never did fully act on these plans.
GENESIS.
2017
January 30th - Origins of the Instagram account. At this point in time, the account (you_deserve_a_sticker) was created and intended to be used for a small handmade sticker business in high school (yes, really).

And that, my dear fellow society members, is how we got here. The story is running out of pages as we’ve traced our way back to the past. Now that you’re all caught up, why not take a browse around? There’s links down here for you to explore, if you feel up to it, of course.
Thank you for being along for the ride,
x Sabrina Angelina, founder / curator / editor of the White Lily Society
Looking for something else?
☆ See everything ever posted to the Substack here.
☆ See a master-list of all past newsletters here.
☆ See a master-list of our shorter social write-ups here.
☆ Find more White Lily Society links (Instagram, Tumblr, etc.) here.
☆ Or find our founder’s links here.
Do you want to be a part of the White Lily Society’s world domination? Come, join the White Lily Society, and become a martyr of deliciousness.