The Fake One is the Real One: Finstas, Authenticity, and Context Collapse in Teen Friend Groups

Abstract Research has shown that as individuals—particularly teenagers—navigate social media, they value authenticity, typically understood as congruence between their online and offline identities. Portraying oneself in an authentic manner, however, is complicated by the phenomenon of context collapse, where multiple audiences (e.g., friends, teachers, parents) become homogenized and boundaries become blurred. Drawing on focus group data with 20 teenagers aged 13–17, we examined how teens use Finstas (“fake Instagram” accounts) to navigate tensions between context collapse and authenticity. Our participants see themselves as quite skilled at creating idealized identities on their Rinstas (“real Instagram” accounts) but turn to Finstas because they find such performances unsatisfying, using these secondary accounts for active resistance to norms of mainstream Instagram, often through negative emotional expression and self-description. Our study adds to the literature on teen social media use by illuminating strategies teens use to navigate context collapse as they seek authenticity. Lay Summary Many teenagers use multiple social media accounts, including what they call “Finstas,” or “fake Instagram” accounts. We interviewed 20 teenagers between 13 and 17 years old about their use of Finstas to find out how they present themselves online. Our participants told us they feel free to be more authentic on their Finstas, which ironically makes their “fake” accounts more “real” than their main Instagram accounts. They are very thoughtful about the fact that their main accounts can be seen by multiple audiences such as teachers, parents, and strangers, and describe using their Finstas for fun and for expressing their honest feelings with their friends. They find posting on their main accounts to be unsatisfying and phony, so they turn to Finstas as a way to be more “real” with their friends, often by sharing negative emotions and being critical of themselves. In doing so, they create alternative norms of behavior like using humor and spontaneity and judge each other based on those norms. Our study helps us to understand how and why teenagers use multiple accounts to express what they see as authentic versions of themselves.