Log 8: The Finsta

A phenomenon that quickly became normalized among my generation is the concept of the so-called finsta. For those of you who don't know, a finsta is an alternative Instagram that is typically more exclusive than a person's "main" account. I first noticed this around a year ago, and was immediately perplexed by it. Many people described it to me as an account where "I can post what I want to post." Then what's your other account for?? I would wonder. Is that your business account?? It felt like it put so much pressure on the main account to be polished and professional. That's why people made finstas in the first place, because their main accounts were sculpted to perfection and that meant they couldn't post everything they wanted to. They were too far in, had too many previous posts, too many followers. They had to start over. Some people even started letting too many people follow their finsta, and had to make another one. I felt like I was witnessing this cycle of wanting to have a place just for friends and then not knowing where to draw the line between who's a real friend and who's more of a social media friend. Still, I have several close friends who use their finstas all the time and really like having a place where they can talk to a lot of different friends at once about personal stuff. It's not that I don't get the appeal, it's more the format that I can't quite wrap my head around. Why Instagram? Instagram seemed to be declining in popularity among my generation for a while there, but it was essentially resurrected by the creation of the finsta. It's hard for me to even form an opinion on this topic because it's somewhat bizarre, but mainly I'm just really fascinated by it.