All right, Her Campus, let’s talk about one of the weirdest “secret” corners of social media: finsta. If you’re not familiar with this form of social media, a finsta is sort of a fake Instagram account. Your finsta lets you break away from the strict rules of your Instagram theme and post photos that are a little more authentic. You can share goofy stories, partake in internet challenges, or complain about your life to a smaller group of followers without being judged by a larger audience. Honestly, finsta’s purpose is a little closer to what the ideal social media would look like— you’re more selective about your followers and more honest in your posts, but this veneer of authenticity can actually create a super toxic social media environment.
I made a finsta in 2016, towards the end of my sophomore year of high school. I tend to be a little late on social media bandwagons, so the finsta community at Daniel Boone Area High School was already in full swing by the time I made my account. I remember feeling super out of the loop about my classmates’ lives before, completely unaware of this brand-new platform for gossip. In an effort to keep up, I made my account.
As I started following my classmates on finsta, I was shocked by the level of honesty in their posts. They posted about messy breakups, problems at home, friends they secretly hated, rants about classes they were taking, and serious posts about how hard it was to stay positive amidst all the stressors of high school. The responses to these posts were usually so supportive, comment sections blowing up with words of encouragement and advice. High school can be a really difficult time for most people, so having a social media platform that showed us that none of us were really alone in our struggles, that we were all battling through that physics class (and sharing our notes and study tips in the DMs), fighting with friends and with parents, dating and breaking up and feeling like a mess, was so comforting. Finsta, at least in my high school, quickly became a dumping ground for all of these negative emotions, but even though it can feel good to rant about your problems and feel heard and validated in the comments section, social media is rarely an effective form of communication. Finsta seemed super appealing at first, and I’m sure that it was a positive influence for some of my peers, but I quickly found that for me, it did more harm than good.
When I first made a finsta, it was more to observe than to actually post. I wanted to be caught up on all the drama, and honestly the homework help was a big plus. I posted silly photos of me and my friends and funny stories with my sister, and that was enough. I really didn’t share a whole lot of my life on that platform, but as my friends’ posts started getting more and more personal, I felt a little out of the loop. I remember a classmate coming up to me in the hallway and asking me if I had broken up with my then-boyfriend. Confused about where she got that idea, I said of course not. “Oh,” she answered, “You just haven’t mentioned him on your finsta.” It was small interactions like that that made me feel like I had to share more of myself than I was comfortable with. Your finsta account is how your classmates see you, the REAL you, so if there was something about myself or my life that I thought was important, it should be documented. However, as high school progressed, finsta quickly became about much more than that.
In my junior year, finsta hit its peak as a toxic environment. This isn’t that surprising; junior year is an awful, stressful time for most people. I would go on my phone and scroll through a timeline of negative posts written by sleep-deprived, stressed out, sad teenagers, and I definitely also contributed my fair share of negativity. There were still plenty of well-intentioned comments, but these started to feel repetitive and inconsequential. No amount of “Love you, dude!!” or “You’ve got this, girl!” was really going to fix any of the problems being posted about, especially because many of the posts went beyond the regular complaints about 2nd period history class. For some of my peers, finsta posts became a cry for help. They’d write lengthy posts about what they were going through almost the way some people would keep a journal. In this case, however, that journal was a social media account with 100+ followers. Sometimes, these cries for help worked, leading to important conversations between friends or to guidance counselors being contacted. For some, the ability to comfortably post about issues they were too afraid to talk about was necessary. But for so many others, it just made everything worse. Followers could feed off each other’s anxieties or overshare to a community of virtual strangers rather than seeking the help they needed. Finsta became a sort of stand-in for honest communication about mental health. This coping mechanism is extremely unhealthy both for those posting and for their followers, who were struggling to support their peers through likes and comments when these conversations didn’t continue off-screen.
I was definitely also guilty of mistaking finsta for an effective means of communication. Today, looking back at my finsta account usually makes me cringe. I’ll read super personal posts about what was happening in my life and how I was feeling and wonder what on earth compelled me to share those thoughts with my followers. This is especially true of posts about my mental health— I’ve found now that I often relied on social media in high school in order to allow me to “talk about” what I was feeling with the people in my life without actually having the conversation. I communicated through posts and likes and comments, and I wish so much now that I had realized sooner how ineffective and unhealthy that was. As I slowly gained the confidence to have those tough conversations and to address my feelings, I stopped posting on my finsta. I sometimes miss sharing memories on that account, and I’ve considered using it again now that I am more cognizant of the issues it creates, but I find comfort in knowing I know longer feel compelled to post in order to work through my anxieties. My boyfriend is still my boyfriend even if he hasn’t made it onto the Instagram feed, and I don’t need positive comments from virtual strangers to know that I am going to be okay.
Okay, so I know I spent this entire article talking about what a negative influence finsta is, but I’m also aware that this is totally not a universal finsta experience! There are tons of awesome and healthy reasons people use finsta, and it’s great to have a social media platform that allows you to feel like you can be more authentic and open about what you post. I still have a private snap story that I mostly use to post videos of goofy moments with my friends, and that’s okay! The important thing is to recognize the type of environment you’re posting in on social media, and to know when you need to get out. I think we should all be more conscious of the way we communicate through social media— what parts of our lives do we share, what thoughts are we broadcasting, and who are they reaching? With how important social media has become as a communication tool today, these are important questions to keep in mind the next time you’re thinking about hitting “post.”
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