Strange to think there was a point in time when I did not know what a finsta was.
A coworker had pulled me into the staff room to have a look at some photos she took from her weekend out. They were raucous scenes of her wildly dancing’ a table with more than a few lines of coke; a brief clip of her sobbing uncontrollably, an unsavory combination of drool, vomit, and tears coating her face.
I couldn’t help but gawk asking why on earth she had these up on Instagram.
“This is my finsta, dummy!”
A finsta, for those not yet aware, is a private Instagram account where one posts whatever it is they see, feel, or do without reserve. From breakdowns to memes to nudes, if it’s something you wouldn’t post on your “rinsta” (your “real” profile), it is “finsta” material.
After accepting my follow, I went home that night and scrolled tirelessly through her profile. What I found left me unnerved. There were long tirades of her verbally abusive mother, previously unsuspected complications she was having with her fiancé, a heart-wrenching account of suicidal thoughts some months prior captioned to a photo of Peppa Pig.
We’d been working together during all this time. I had no idea any of it was happening.
She and I haven’t talked much since leaving the company we worked for. Not that we need to, though, as we’re both up to date on what’s truly happening in the other’s life. She follows my finsta too.
At first, the content of my finsta was relatively mild. Mostly just silly selfies or blowing off steam after dealing with a rude customer. I had let in a select group of very close friends, but as time went on, I found myself posting to an audience far removed from my immediate social circle. The first was a kind stranger I met at a party. We were drunk and I knew I would never see her again, “but hell, you’re cool, follow my finsta!”
From there, a flamboyant Frenchman I know exclusively from playing on Minecraft servers with. While visiting a small town in northern Arizona, I exchanged finstas with my waiter, learning of a debilitating relationship with his sister and of a large birthmark on his inner thigh all before he even dropped the check.
Dually, I too found myself posting in a far more candid manner. I’d sit every morning with my coffee, bleary-eyed and disheveled, writing a few paragraphs or talking to the camera. I’d backlog funny photos I saw throughout the day so I could caption them later in whatever headspace I found myself in then. And as that headspace became increasingly dark, this routine became a necessary ritual. At my lowest of lows, I’d clutch onto my phone as if it were the only thing keeping me from floating away. Its retreat became a lifeline.
I, like many young people in this country who are in need of it, cannot afford therapy. Especially in the era of COVID, when budget cuts and tight financial situations are leaving countless people without access, the situation regarding public mental health has become even more dire.
My finsta, however, is free. My phone is near always in reach.
As I’ve come out the other side happier and healthier, I’ve been able to observe through my own experience the ways in which this “platform within a platform” fills in for and even parallels conventional mental health care services unavailable to myself and to thousands of other users, the necessity of which cannot be understated.
Something I quickly noticed upon analyzing the finsta is the qualitative homogeneity within its culture. If you take a close look, there really is not much aesthetic deviation from one finsta to the next. Profiles could easily be mixed up if the viewer lacks a body of context for the account holder.
This may be unintentional, but the reason why this occurs is far from inexplicable. Psychotherapy research reports the benefits of familiar environments in achieving emotional release from patients.