What the Hell Is Finsta?
Welcome to WTF, Emily? – the column in which Lifehacker employees are closest to a teenager explaining what the hell teenagers are doing online. Every two weeks, recent college graduate Emily Lipstein will dive deeply into what teens are thinking, going beyond the moral panic on the 11 p.m. news.
Hey hello! I’m going to start this column with a concept that’s been around for a while, but I’ve been asked to explain at least once a month the Olds in my life: finstas.
At its most basic level, “finsta” is a combination of the words “fake” and “Instagram”, which contrasts with the user’s “rinsta” (“real” + “Instagram”). This is a secondary account of a person on a social platform, created for a specific audience and purpose. If someone says they have a finsta, they definitely have a rinsta, but having a rinsta doesn’t mean they also have a finsta.
Entries for the word “finsta” began appearing in the Urban Dictionary in early 2015. The top post by user thewizardofwords tells in more detail about the mechanics of Finsta’s work:
Finsta is a combination of the words Fake & Insta (gram). When people have a finsta, they post photos that only their closest friends want to see, and not their regular Instagram followers (rinsta). Usually a girl has a Finnish woman and guys shouldn’t follow her. Finstas should not be taken lightly, and it doesn’t matter how many posts or followers you have. Finstas are mostly confidential and have funny or clever usernames.
Who can view Finsta?
Typically, your Finsta followers are a stripped down group of your Rinsta followers. Your best friends will follow you on both accounts, but someone you haven’t spoken to since high school may only be allowed to follow you on your ringtone.
Even if your rinsta is not set for privacy, your finsta is definitely closed. The account descriptor for your ringtone is more likely to be associated with your real name and, if you have one, with your Facebook account. Finsta descriptors are more like early screen names (like tina_colada or princesspisces) and are not outwardly related to your personality. Contrary to what many Olds think, this identity sharing is not happening because Finns are inherently a dumping ground for teens to post photos of them doing bad things: it’s more about fostering a sense of trust and intimacy between you and your followers.
At its core, the finsta / rinsta dichotomy relies on curation and performativity, and teens know this even if they haven’t read Erving Goffman .
Finsta’s real goal
Your rinsta is meticulously catered for, he has pictures of your birthday cake, a really nice selfie, your dog, you and your friends on the beach. The number of posts is limited, but the number of subscribers is limitless. For example, this account has many hallmarks of a carefully curated aesthetic rinst (which people will simply refer to as their “insta”):
On the other hand, your finsta is the final resting place for all your ugly selfies, screenshots with texts you love, images from nothing with captions, which are essentially diary entries. There is no awkwardness on your finsta. This is a place where you can be shameless, unfiltered and as performative as possible.
Here I disagree with the definition given by the word wizard, which says that “the finsta should not be taken seriously.” At some levels, the finsts can be just reposts of memes or selfies with a double chin; but often they exist as a place to house your innermost thoughts, a stream of sensations of consciousness that cannot simply exist in your head. But even if the finst does not have the content restrictions that the rinst has, this does not mean that he does not have performative aspects. If rinsta is a place to fulfill aspirations, then finsta is a place to perform wrestling.
For example, my little sister’s finsta (and don’t worry, I got her permission to share this) has photos of her when she was a chubby kid, bad selfies, reposted memes about school, and even photosets where she asks her. followers to vote for which one she should publish on her rinst. They are all accompanied by essay-sized signatures about how everything sucks and how she hates her life.
Another friend’s Finsta consists entirely of selfies in which she cries. Underneath each photo, there is a long explanation of why she is crying. The feelings behind the finsts are no doubt real, but by feeding them through Instagram, they can be magnified and broadcast as something more intense than they really are.
Therefore, it is difficult to describe it as a “fake” instagram. Your finsta is the place for the real you, while the fake / carefully chosen / perfect aesthetic version of you lives on your rinsta. But if you take the confessional aspects to the next level, you are not real either. After all, teens have developed a really provocative (and self-conscious) way of labeling and categorizing the way they portray themselves on the Internet, and I’m here for that.
What teens want parents to know
Since the finstas are private and only available to people who are allowed to spy on them, parents cannot spy on without their child’s knowledge. You can’t sneak a peek into their high tech diary while they’re at school.
This is content (or lack of access to said content) that is probably a little frustrating for parents and understandably so. But if there are no other reasons for concern, I would say that you can relax with the fact that they have this personal online space. Maintain open lines of communication between you and your child. If they turn to you for help with their problems or when they are sad, then they probably don’t have much that you don’t already know about.
Are you confused by what teens are doing on the Internet? Let Emily know what phenomena, slang, or other non-Tide Pod events she should cover in the following comments.