If you're new to the social media world, you might not know the term 'finsta.' Finsta is slang for the term 'fake instagram,' however, these Instagrams are the opposite of fake.
Instagram is a great, beautiful place for you to post pictures of you and your friends doing beautiful things and going to beautiful places. It is a harmless little world that we put an immense amount of value and effort in. Finstas are the polar opposite -- or, some might argue that they're what Instagram was originally intended for.
On a finsta, people post whatever they want, whenever they want. Finsta's are designed to be broadcast only to a select amount of people, to be a place where the jokes are insular and the pictures are vague. People are brutally honest on their finstas. They talk about whatever is on their mind and they do not have any incentive to hold back because only their closest friends are privy to their thoughts. Finstas are healthy, to say the least.
Our generation is often critiqued and ridiculed for being the most self-centered. I think finstas demonstrate the more important aspect of our generation -- we are self-aware. In fact, we are so self-aware that we have designed a mechanism with which to combine our two favorite things; societal validation and talking about ourselves openly. There is nothing wrong with this, though. Young adults being open and honest with their friends can lead to a more open level of communication with one another and people can feel like they have a safe place with which to broadcast their viewpoints. Rather than turning to drugs, people are turning to an app where they can post their favorite memes or rant about their days -- and, in such a polarizing world, this might be the healthiest coping mechanism to date.
Instagram has become a place where people show the best versions of themselves. There's no shame in that; nobody wants to look bad publicly. The issue with Instagram is the amount of effort we place into making ourselves look perfect, to appear as if we are doing just swell. Finstas undo all that because editing apps and filters are frowned upon. Nobody wants to look perfect on their finsta -- that would counter the entire purpose of a finsta; to be real, to be honest.
So here's to not shaming our generation for pursuing new avenues with which to openly and honestly tell the world how we are. Let's stop critiquing ourselves for wanting to be heard. There are so many people in the world, so many voices dying to be heard. What's the shame in wanting your friends to know how you feel about things in the most public of ways?
