“Will You Commit to Ending Finsta?” – Disclosure On Private Accounts
Now that we know that our levels of disclosure differ depending on our audience, it is easy to apply that knowledge directly to our social media accounts. Your brain might think of how people often post more personal information about their day-to-day lives on their Twitter account than their Linkedin Account (please keep in mind that personal information in this setting does not refer only to things like phone number or home address, but in the case of Communication Privacy Management, or CPM, means secrets or anything we would conceal from others about ourselves). Where the discrepancy between disclosing and withholding gets really interesting, though, is when it appears on the same social media platform. In today’s post, I hope to provide some insight into how our posting habits differ not even on a platform-to-platform basis, but strictly between different sets of audiences.
You personally may not have one of these types of accounts, but I bet you know someone who does. You guessed it, a Finsta. Short for “Fake-Instagram,” this type of account is a second account held by an already active Instagram user and is used as a type of private account with a more exclusive audience. Finsta users allow their closest friends to follow this account where the user posts generally more funny, unedited, and personal content that they would usually opt not to share with their regular Instagram (Rinsta) followers. As an example, I’ve included a swimsuit photo that I have posted on my Rinsta in contrast with a swimsuit photo I have posted on my Finsta. You’ll notice the stark difference in photo styles. On the left, the photo on my Rinsta showcases me smiling, looking happy, tan, and attractive. On the right with the Finsta photo, however, the photo is from an unflattering angle and I am making an unflattering face. The contrast between these two photos showcases the differences between the two posting norms with the separate audiences.
But why do we do this? Kang et al. (2018) explains it better than I ever could. People seek the catharsis of disclosure, but Instagram users are highly limited in their ability to express themselves to the fullest on their Rinsta account while avoiding offending anyone on their followers list and remaining in the constraints of what is socially acceptable. As humans, we are highly motivated to present our best self – meaning, the self that others would deem as having positive and socially desirable attributes (Goffman, 1959). As a result, Instagram users present a more conservative or “good” version of themselves on their real Instagram account (vanilla self, as Kang calls it). In this way, Instagram users are deliberately using CPM rules to determine what, how much, and to whom they share their personal information.
In most situations, the amount that a typical Instagram user shares doesn’t even scratch the surface of the genuine self. Then, in order to fulfill that desire for self-disclosure, users create a Finsta. On a Rinsta account, users tend to post more conservative pictures that paint them in a positive light meant to satisfy their large and public audience. It becomes easier to form close relationships with close friends with the small and intimate Finsta audience. A person may have several photos from the same night and choose to post differently on each platform. A common example of this is New Year’s Eve. If you take a scroll through Instagram on NYE or NYD, you’ll see plenty of photos of partygoers in sparkly dresses, champagne toasts, or lovers kissing at the strike of midnight. However, looking at those same posters’ Finsta accounts, you might find some photos of them hunched over the toilet in the morning, face planting on the walk home from the bar, or shoveling in some late-night pizza. Users still seek to post these unflattering-but-genuine photos of themselves to feel that catharsis of sharing with their friends even though they feel uncomfortable sharing with their entire Instagram audience, which is why they take to their Finsta. As a demonstration, I’ve included what appeared on my Instagram and Finsta accounts on NYD 2021. On my Rinsta, my followers saw my friends and I looking attractive at a party whereas my Finsta followers saw our hangover outfits shortly before driving home.
Just as we discussed in blog 1, according to CPM, individuals are tactful about what information they share with others in direct conversation. In a similar manner, people are also tactful in how they express their personal identity. By making use of a Finsta, users can “use satire, inside jokes and humor to enhance social intimacy with close friends,” (Kang et al., 2018, p. 67). A smaller audience of followers makes users more comfortable disclosing personal information such as not-so-flattering photo of themselves, recent mistakes, or funny jokes that they might chose to conceal in front of a larger audience of followers on a Rinsta account.
To put it in words that are easily applicable to our own lives: Social media users post on Instagram as a form of positive self-presentation (Kang et al., 2018). As a result, we often decide to conceal a lot of information from our audience out of fear of offending anyone or portraying ourselves in a negative light. As a result, some create a second, more private account where we feel more comfortable sharing more private information and enhance our relationship with our audience. For some, a Finsta is a place to express their corny jokes and ugly photos, while for others, it may be a place to express vulnerability or negativity. As primary owners of information, we consciously decide to conceal and reveal information depending on our audience and who we would be making co-owners of that information. A Finsta is a great physical representation of this phenomenon as we can actively see the difference between the content of an average user’s Rinta and Finsta accounts. Grace Knudsen, student, says that “Finsta is my safe space to post things that I think are funny without having to cater to my wider Instagram audience. Everyone who follows my Finsta knows what I am like in real-life.” Many users like Grace feel the same way. While Finsta and Rinsta are technically a part of the same social media platform, they are vastly different ways of communicating and sharing information. Using privacy management tactics, we, as social media users, decide exactly which information to share to which audiences and cater the way we present ourselves and disclose our information accordingly.
Works Cited
Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. New York: Anchor Books.
Kang, J., & Wei, L. (2018). Let me be at my funniest: Instagram users’ motivations for using Finsta (a.k.a., fake Instagram). The Social Science Journal. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.soscij.2018.12.005
