What’s the Deal With Finstas?
A quick glance inside the ‘finsta’ phenomenon
First of all, what is a “finsta?” The name comes from combining the words “fake” and “Instagram.” It’s a secondary private account that, despite the name, can be way realer than your primary account.
When I first started my finsta I had just graduated high school. I was anxious, aimless, and depressed. Diaries weren’t working for me. I could never fully commit to writing daily, long-winded entries about every trivial detail of my life. But I needed an outlet. Through my younger brother, I had been made aware that some kids in our school were making private Instagrams, or finstas, to post things that couldn’t make the real ‘Gram. These accounts were mostly full of low quality pictures or videos of friends doing things they didn’t want their parents to see. You could only follow if you:
- Were tight with the person running the finsta.
- Had a finsta of your own.
Reid Howard, a student at University of Florida, reflects on his choice to create a finsta, writing, “I got fed up with the superficiality of Instagram culture and wanted a place to just be myself without obsessing over my online ‘image.’” He continues, “I was following too many people whose lives I didn’t care about and needed a change of scenery.”
Thus was born a small circle within our high school: finstas following other finstas. Nothing serious was ever posted — because it was high school — and we were ultimately still concerned about our “image.”
However, when I moved from Florida to New York for school I was semi-surprised to learn that finstas were a universal phenomenon. Upon being granted access into the private accounts of the new friends I was making, I was introduced to a different approach to the finsta. No longer were people just high schoolers documenting getting trashed with their friends, they were in college and… kind of suffering. I watched many of my friends’ finstas transform from a place to toss low quality pictures from the weekend to what was essentially a hyper personal photo diary. Actually, the pictures became less and less relevant as the finstas evolved. A blurry selfie of the account owner’s face or a meme simply became a vehicle for a caption to vent about work, sex, friendships, school, or just the garbage encountered in daily life.
Leshya Bracaglia, a student at New York University, describes her finsta as “like a diary” and that “it just feels good to put yourself out there to your friends. Its a fun and more carefree Instagram!”
Why do people like to post on their finstas? Why do some people run secondary accounts with upwards of a thousand posts? The interesting thing is, nobody actually feels the need to respond, nobody feels the need to do anything but throw a ‘solidarity like’ every now and again.
It is also medium from which people are able to keep track of their own lives. The ability to go backwards and track your headspace from initial account creation until this very moment now can be so important in keeping everything in perspective. However, all of this begs the question: why? Why not keep a real diary, something only you can see? Why must you perform your anxieties for an audience of your peers?
Amelia Murray, a student at New York University, says that her finsta is a way for her friends to stay connected with her despite not hanging out all the time. “My finsta is an enigma,” Murray writes, “[it] has all my funny, crazy, not sober, and my friends always say that they feel like they can stay up to date with my life even if I don’t see them for a hot second.”
