Hidden behind goofy usernames and private accounts people are sharing their silliest photos and sharing their craziest, most embarrassing stories. Instagram is a social media app with approximately 800 million daily users, and a portion of those daily users are using the app for “fake accounts.” The term 'finsta', combining the words fake and Instagram, has taken millennials by storm. Fake Instagram accounts allow their users to avoid the pressures of traditional beauty and social standards. With these types of accounts there’s typically no stress about how many followers the account has or how many likes the pictures receive. “Finstas aren’t supposed to be taken seriously and it doesn’t matter how many posts or followers you have. Finstas are mainly kept private and have funny or clever usernames,” wrote the site Urban Dictionary in their definition of the term. 'Finstas' are funny accounts used to joke about life and share stories about a range of things from a bad day at school, memories of a fun night out to heartbreak and anxiety. How did an account for real experiences, memories and emotions coin the term “fake Instagram?” What’s so fake about 'finsta' anyways?
Nothing. Nothing is fake about 'finsta.' Those accounts are where we go to post about our true selves. 'Finsta' users share a glimpse of their reality; their fears, sorrow and joy. But because today’s social standards are so intense Instagram users do not feel comfortable sharing these feelings on their main accounts. On ‘rinsta’, or real Instagram, accounts we tend to focus on how many followers we have and the number of likes each photo gets. We even consider the perfect time of day to post to maximize the amount of attention our photos get. These habits and concerns are ridiculous, but not uncommon among millennials. We have been raised to believe that what other people think of us is important. We think that every photo must be perfectly edited to hide our flaws, and our captions must be witty and clever. Forcing these thoughts upon ourselves results in posts that are anything but real.
What would social media be like if we stopped caring about filters and likes? What if we started sharing authentic aspects of our life on public, main accounts? Would we really be judged as much as we fear? Would it even matter? Next time you go to post on your fake Instagram think about the content you’re sharing and ask yourself what is so fake about it? Maybe one day we won’t need fake accounts to hide our genuine, silly, vulnerable, and reckless selves.
