When Instagram made it easier to switch between accounts, a trend emerged between teens and twenty-somethings: the “finsta”.
The term finsta is a combination of the words “fake” and “Instagram” and refers to a private Instagram account, only followed by close friends, where the user can post the content they wouldn’t post to their regular Instagram.
A finsta is a great place to post everything that doesn’t fit with your carefully curated Instagram’s regular programming; and can be made up of anything from embarrassing photos of your friends to all of the selfies that didn’t quite make it to your public ‘gram.
With Instagram increasingly becoming a place where the unspoken rules of filters and aesthetics can give even the most photogenic person anxiety, the case for creating a finsta only mounts. Many teens have preached of the benefits of having a place where editing, social judgement, like count and FaceTune are defunct – instead you create a safe, social-haven where you can lurk other people’s accounts without them knowing, post risqué selfies, or 15 photos a day of your pet.
And if you’re not a teen, this isn’t a social media trend to avoid – self-indulgence and the desire to dumb-post doesn’t suddenly disappear when you turn 20. So the next time you feel yourself fretting over engagement and likes, just remember there’s always the opportunity to create an account where your authentic, insta-vomit self can thrive sans-judgement.
