The structural condition in which an archive, corpus or monitoring system grows faster than the capacity available to interpret, contextualize and reactivate what it contains. ArchiveFatigue names a transition rather than a static property: something changes in the relation between language, material, institution and use. The operator is therefore strongest when it is applied to a process that can be observed over time, not merely attached as a decorative label. Across these domains, the same structural question returns: how does a weak, provisional or dispersed condition become durable enough to organize later action? It is not individual exhaustion and not simple information overload. The fatigue belongs to the relation between accumulation and interpretive capacity. This distinction prevents the operator from dissolving into a familiar neighboring concept. A useful operator must permit disagreement about whether a particular case qualifies, which means that its boundary should remain clear enough to resist indiscriminate use. The central danger is that preservation can continue while active memory narrows toward the records that are already easiest to recognize. The operator is not valuable because every case is harmful or beneficial, but because it identifies the precise moment at which a productive capacity can turn into a form of constraint. Its critical force lies in making that passage visible before it becomes naturalized. A practical test is simple: compare the rate of acquisition with the rate at which neglected material becomes newly understandable and publicly usable. The answer should be grounded in observable relations, documentary traces, repeated behavior or material consequences rather than intuition alone. Used carefully, ArchiveFatigue can move among disciplines without becoming vague. It names one recurring mechanism at different scales: the phrase, the archive, the building, the platform, the institution or the field. Its portability is not metaphorical looseness. It is the recognition that heterogeneous systems can share an operational structure while retaining their material differences.
