What’s a Finsta? An In-Depth Investigation
WTF is a finsta?
Ugh, it’s so many things. It’s fun, it’s therapy, and it’s down and dirty and honest af.
But most importantly, it’s where our collective curated Instagram faux-personalities go to die.
A finsta is a private, locked Instagram account with a nonsensical name (cacao2cacao_? harambb6969?). Only your friends have access to your finsta, and you use it for posting pics and content from your real life. You put all the shittiest selfies, weirdest memes, and text screenshots that would never see the light of day on your rinsta, or “real” Instagram.
READ ALSO: How to Pick the Perfect Finsta Name
And your public-facing rinsta, on the other hand, is the version of you that you want the rest of the world to see — perfectly posed, maybe even photoshopped, and without a hair out of place.
Technically, the names “finsta” and “rinsta” should be reversed, because most people’s public-facing Instagram is actually the fake one, but I digress.
Finsta culture is surprisingly controversial. Some people think having a finsta is fake af, as the name would suggest. One of our interns, Catherine Gough, even wrote a diatribe pleading with her generation to merge their finsta and rinsta personas instead of keeping up this digital double act.
READ ALSO: Opinion: Sorry, Finstas Are For Babies
So we talked to some of our favorite finsta enthusiasts — including IG influencers Dounia and Mina, Galore intern Keely Quinlan and YouTuber Lexie Lombard — about why they even bother running two accounts. Watch below to learn more.
