When I was a freshman in college, I jumped on the Finsta train just like everyone else. It was the perfect outlet to vent after a sh*tty day or celebrate when something good happened. I felt like I had a space to be myself and could share it with a select group of people who I knew actually cared about what was going on in my life.
I really screwed up my sophomore year though, said some really terrible things that got me in trouble, and I realized I had so many other outlets for expressing my feelings that it was time to let this go.
It felt liberating. I wasn't spending hours scrolling through trying to make sure I was caught up on people's lives. I realized I had been following people I barely knew, just because I felt like I had to. Finsta culture isn't really that different from Instagram culture, it just matters less the number of followers you have.
Over the summer, I felt extremely out of the loop on people's lives. And I knew that it was ridiculous that I wasn't reaching out to check in with people and vice versa. So I created a new account. And I went through the same cycle again. Bye Finsta 2.0. I didn't need that stress in my life.
By this point, I had fully recognized the shift that had happened. People would drop things in group chats and I would have no clue what they were talking about it. Why? Because they had talked about it on their Finsta and everyone already knew. Except me.
But why should I need to follow an Instagram account to know what's going on in your life if you're supposedly one of my close friends? Shouldn't you want to tell me? Shouldn't you want to make the effort to share your life with me instead of my reading it on a "fake" Instagram account?
Finsta accounts have dehumanized friendships on a whole other level. But it's also opened my eyes to who really wants to invest their time in a friendship with me instead of taking the easy way out.
Just like with unfollowing people who make you feel less, don't let not having a finsta account make you feel like less of a friend. Invest yourself in relationships, and make sure people are seeing the same for you. An Instagram caption doesn't equal a conversation.
