My definition of a finsta: a ‘fake’ Instagram account that is not connected to your real identity, one where you don’t follow people you know in real life, and where you either 1) don’t post at all or 2) only post pics without you or people you know in them.
I deleted my personal Instagram account in January 2018 and have never looked back. The decision stemmed from an anxiety that I felt that every time I did anything, I needed to post about it. If I went for a night out with friends, I was more worried about how my outfit looked in the pics we took beforehand than actually having fun spending time together. If I went to a restaurant, I hoped their food looked cool, without taking into account how it might actually taste. If I was taking a hike, I was thinking only about getting a picture of the view, rather than actually looking at a view, you know? If I didn’t post about what I was doing, what was the point of doing anything at all? I wasn’t living in the moment, I was living in my phone.
So I left cold turkey. A warning popped up when I hit the ‘delete account’ button, saying something like: “You will never be able to reactivate your account, you’ll lose all your pictures/data, you can never use this username again, are you sure?” I quickly checked that I had all the photos backed up on my phone and said goodbye to my clever handle forever.
The next few months were slightly uncomfortable as I figured out how to function in a world where I was forced to live in the moment, where I had to figure out what looked good to me, rather than what looked good in a picture. But it was SO worth it. I don’t worry about how many likes a picture of my croissant will get, I think about how much I like it. I live my life for myself. I have no obligation to share any part of me with the internet. No one gets to judge what I’m up to, because they don’t know what I’m up to. It’s amazing.
Now where does the finsta come in? Well, I found that by being completely disconnected from a platform where the world shares so much information, I was missing more than a few good things: outfit inspo, new restaurant openings, at-home workout tips. So, I created a finstagram. An account that was in no way related to me or my life. Just an account that gave me access to the information I wanted.
The rules of my finsta are as follows:
- I follow whoever I want without embarrassment, and I unfollow whoever I want without fear of hurting anyone’s feelings. I strictly do not follow anyone I know in real life, and I don’t let them follow me. In fact, I’ve blocked some friends I know would go searching for me. I follow fashion bloggers, my favorite bakeries, athletes who inspire me. But I have no idea what that random girl, who I used to be friends with in college and was forced to continue to follow because I couldn’t be rude and unfollow, is up to.
- I post whatever I want, or nothing at all. Sometimes I post a pic of my breakfast because I want to remember how good it was. But sometimes, like right now, I don’t post for two years. I have no obligation to keep any followers up to date.
- Numbers don’t matter. Zero likes and zero followers are fine. My finsta is not a reflection of me as a person, its purpose is not to validate how many people like me (which, to be fair, a regular Instagram account shouldn’t be doing for you either…).
- I like everything or nothing, without, again, any guilt of hurting someone’s feelings, because I do what I want.
- I check it however often I want, but never feel like I HAVE to check it for fear of missing some big announcement from a friend. If one of my friends has something important to share with me, they text or call me.
One of the unpredicted benefits of only having a finstagram is that I still get to see what’s going on in the world, new styles, new food, new vacation spots, but I don’t have the details of what everyone in my social network did last weekend. I never have FOMO. There is only so much space in our brains to remember things about our communities, and I don’t want to waste mine on the mundane details of people from high school who I happen to follow on Instagram.
Then why is following random people on the internet less stressful than following people you know (or sort of knew at some point) in real life? I’m not exactly sure, to be honest. Maybe it’s because if you know someone in real life and have an obligation to them in the real world (or some stakes regarding what they think of you), you indirectly have some similar obligation to them on the internet as well. For example, if you didn’t like one picture of Mary’s baby, Mary might think you don’t like her baby in real life and stop inviting you to her BBQs. IDK. Or maybe an Instagram account becomes an extension of who you are in real life. It becomes a representation of who you are if the people looking at it know you in real life, and they make connections and judgments of you in the real world. But if it’s only far-removed-from-you people on the internet who are there, it doesn’t have to mean anything. It’s not you, it’s just an account. You no longer owe anyone anything, it doesn’t matter what people who don’t know you think.
My life is now private and I have full control over the details. I share the important things with my close friends, like getting engaged, via text. It’s more special if you take the time to personally contact someone to let them know important things that happened to you! Why do we feel the need to announce every life occasion to the internet anyway? I don’t want people to know what I’m up to. Then they can ask questions. Why should I share any part of my life with people I don’t even want in my life?
And the main benefit that I was aiming for, of living in the moment, is better than I even imagined. I wear what I feel like wearing. My food tastes better. I explore places that sound interesting to me. If I someday climb to the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, I won’t need to take a pic and post it immediately so everyone knows what I accomplished. I might take a pic so that I can look back on it in 30 years and remember how cool it was, but in the moment, I will be taking in the view. However, I will probably also take a moment to stand on the edge of the mountain and shout to the world that everyone needs to delete their Instagram right now and make a finsta!!!
It's not you, co. 