The rise of the ‘Finsta,’ a fake Instagram account for only your best friends

Finstagram. You may think you read that wrong. You didn’t. More commonly know as “Finstas,” Finstagrams are on the rise and they’re just getting started.

Finstagram is a mixture of the words “fake” and “Instagram.” As opposed to a “Rinstagram,” they are used to post embarrassing or funny pictures for close friends to see.

At first, I didn’t think this would become a “thing.”

But alas, I was wrong.

Personally, I don’t have a Finsta. I don’t really understand the point, but some of my close friends do.

And the more they Finsta, the funnier my Instagram feed gets.

So what’s the point of a Finstagram? When I asked my friend Ann, a Public Relations major, she said: “To post photos that would be weird or otherwise inappropriate for my Rinsta [real Insta]. Or ones that just didn’t make the cut but I still wanted to share with friends”

So basically, the idea of this social media trend is to post pictures that would be deemed “unacceptable” for normal social media accounts. What makes it fun for the viewer is that you get to see different sides of people you normally wouldn’t see on social media.

But what really is a Finsta? A Finsta is a form of social media where you can be 100% you. Your Finsta can and should be considered your real Instagram account. I’ve seen hundreds of Finstas with girls without makeup or filters talking about life as if these “social media standards” didn’t exist. That’s because in the Finsta world, they don’t.

If anything, I hope the rise of Finsta will help us realize that being original and ourselves on social media is exactly how we should be using it. We now live in a day and age where we use social media as a form of satisfaction in who we are.

We shouldn’t feel pressured to find the perfect edit or caption. We shouldn’t determine our self worth based off the number of likes we receive or the comments we get. We should remember that social media is a way to connect the world. It’s a way to show off who we really are, flaws and all. We have to remember that no one is as perfect as their social media accounts make them seem.

As for myself, it’ll take me a while to get there. Social media isn’t a weakness as many older adults think, it’s our strength and it’s time for us to show the world who we really are.

So to all my Finsta friends out there, thank you for being real and authentic. Finsta on, my friends, Finsta on.