How to create a "Finsta" and understanding why they matter

Key quotes:

• I need to decide the photo to post, ask friends for advice on captions, make sure every blemish is not seen, and edit it
• People, usually girls, get a second Instagram account along with their real instagrams, rinstagrams, to post any pictures or videos they desire
• Only your closest friends follow this account.” If you still are not getting it, finsta is sort of a combination between the content you would post on snapchat inside the instagram app
• At my school I went from only just hearing about this internet phenomenon a few months ago to hearing people talk about finsta accounts everyday
• The fact that so many people are building second accounts for a different purpose on the same social network shows just how strongly teens are connected to Instagram and how much more potential network actually has
• So for everyone out there watch out for finstagrams, they may just change the future of Instagram, and the social networking world as we know it
• In a quick google search I couldn’t find one mention of finsta/finstagram and thought that this is a perfect example of how technology writers sometimes miss out on big changes in the way social media is being consumed.

Key quotes:

• In an effort to highlight the range of perspectives and voices from our intergenerational team (including team members attending high school and college), we have structured this post as a multimodal compilation that includes: The two terms that are currently the most important to understand in the world of Instagram are rinsta (“real Instagram”) and finsta (“fake Instagram”)
• As several Internet researchers have argued (boyd & Ellison 2007; Madden et al., 2013; Marwick & boyd 2010; Palfrey & Gasser, 2016; Papacharissi, 2010), social media enables young people to explore their identities and experiment with self-presentation according to different contexts and audiences
• Tanvi, Skyler, and Quinn agreed that whether people were engaging with a “real insta” or a “fake insta,” all social media content is heavily curated
• The podcast is based on a group conversation we had as a team (including team members in high school, college, and older) in August, and it has been edited in order to highlight key topics around the use of multiple Instagram accounts, including the relationship between the online/offline world; social norms and rules surrounding multiple account usage; and the ways young people engage in identity exploration on the platform.

Key quotes:

• Typically, teens and tweens use these to post pictures that they don’t want to share with the world at large or that they want to keep private for some reason
• If your teen or tween is using social media, it’s important to know whether their public account is all there is or if they have a finsta (or more than one!) that they keep hidden from the public eye
• Once you know about your child’s social media behaviors and whether or not they’re using a finsta to hide things that they don’t want to be public, you can choose what steps to take from there
• Make sure you know what your child is posting and monitor their finsta even more carefully than you do the public account that everyone can access
• Some teens enjoy the privacy of a finsta simply because it allows them to post goofy selfies and pictures with friends without the fear of being judged by a wider audience
• Through that private account, your teen or tween can cultivate their own authentic relationship with their followers, showing a more “real” version of who they are.

Key quotes:

• I thought it might be a mistake because I didn’t know the person very well and wasn’t aware I was a finsta-worthy acquaintance
• And when I looked at their account I remembered how much I love following finstas
• So, with that in mind let me tell you more than you probably want or need to know about finstas
• The finsta, or fake insta, is an Instagram phenomenon in which a person creates an alternate Instagram account to be followed by close friends
• The finstas I follow are comprised of photos and videos of “illicit activities”(things you might get in trouble if a boss or parent saw), unflattering selfies, drawn out rants complaining about a job or other person, and intensely personal admissions or other content reminiscent of a diary entry
• The finsta seems to make obvious the thing we don’t say about social media: the online persona you cultivate is not a holistic version of you
• My social media accounts allow me to project the person I want others to see in me
• But we know that social media does not breed total honesty
• Before social media people had public and private personas; they just weren’t laid out as concretely as they are now.