“I always mix-up my finsta and rinsta,” Carl Huggins (‘18) said. Iit’s annoying but not that big of a deal.”

A finsta is a “fake instagram” a place where most teens post pictures of themselves not in their most beautiful, ‘edited’, Instagram worthy state. The pictures or videos are funny, goofy and silly. They are supposed to be just a joke. Teens also use finsta as an outlet to complain about their lives or something that is annoying or bothering them. Teens only allow their closest friends to see them at their worst.

For example Bethany Harker (‘18)  posted a video of her cropped in Beyonce’s body singing her classic “Formation”; this was a “complete nightmare” when she saw the post uploaded to her rinsta! Immediately she said “very bad words” and had to delete it as soon as possible.  She said that finding out it happened is the worst part but “once you delete it, everyone forgets.”

But even after deletion of the post, irreparable damage is done…due to screenshoting–making it much easy for teens to become the joke of every group chat, of every friend group.

Stella Olsen (‘18) said “I just delete it off my rinsta and complain about it on my finsta –for real this time.”  

Taylor Reynolds (‘17) said “I often find that I accidentally post finstas on my real instagram and it can be embarrassing sometimes!”

It is committing a social faux pa. You will never be considered for a job, no boys or girls will ever look at you, you’re parents will kick you out of their house, and you will have no friends left.  

The internet has seen and liked the photo that was posted by mistake on insta; and so many randoms are all high-key judging.

Linda Williams (‘19) uses finsta on the daily “I use it more than rinsta, because it is more personal and I have less followers.”

Even though in the finsta world you can be famous, the real population does not need to know about the personal problems we face on our finsta. Which is why they do not follow it… Or let them follow it.

The finsta phenomenon has revolutionized to the double life people live. It juxtaposes the idea of a perfect edited world into the realities of people’s real life.