Scrolling Instagram several times a day is nothing new for me. Sometimes it’s because I’m procrastinating and sometimes it’s because I want to know what’s happening. But throughout the week, it’s normally because it’s my job.
My thumb swipes faster than my brain can comprehend the posts I’m seeing most days. Most of them are polished photo dumps, campaign imagery, influencer content, celebrity sightings and sponsored posts – some better disguised than others. Everything feels incredibly legible – and all the images seem to arrive with their own marketing strategy.
Then a post stopped me in my tracks.
What caught my attention wasn’t anything crazy. In fact, that’s why it stood out. It was a well-loved pink hot water bottle covered in fuzzy fabric, embroidered with a cartoon unicorn and the words “Have a Magical Day”. There was no obvious context or aspirational message. Just a photo that felt refreshingly pointless, with a few emojis to summarise the vibe.
Then I checked the username, only to find out it was @treaclyproductions. Somehow, I’d stumbled across Rachel Sennott’s Finsta account.
Finding Sennott’s private Instagram shouldn’t have felt as exciting as it did, but the feeling was visceral. It felt human and real. The photos looked like they had been posted without a single consideration for engagement metrics, audience growth or brand partnerships. I felt like an archaeologist discovering velociraptor bones for the first time – I’d found evidence that people were still using the internet recreationally.
As someone who works in social media and studied digital marketing, I understand how we got here. The clearer the message within a post is, the more likely it is to resonate. The more recognisable the brand that posted it, the more likely people are to engage. But it seems social media has become so effective that it’s stopped feeling social at all.
The internet used to be full of texture and friction; Instagram was a place where you uploaded a blurry photo because it was the only photo you had. You posted an awkward Facebook status for fun. You documented things on Snapchat because they actually happened.
Today, almost every account feels like an exercise in cultivating a personal brand. That’s not necessarily a criticism, but in becoming so intentional, social media has also become predictably polished.
Which is why the return of the Finsta feels significant. Finstas – or fake Instagrams – entered the cultural discourse around 2013, as people began creating secondary, private accounts separate from their main profiles. These spam accounts became spaces to post mid-action photos, inside jokes or text messages between friends and updates that would never make it to the main feed.
Fast forward to 2026 and that same desire for authenticity has become a trend in its own right. Brands are increasingly adopting the visual language of the Finsta – blurry photos, iPhone snapshots and seemingly unfiltered moments – to appear more relatable. Balenciaga’s recently launched account, @keeppprolling, is one example, posting casual behind-the-scenes footage from campaigns and shoots. I loved it. But it also illustrates a familiar internet cycle: every attempt to escape curation eventually becomes another form of it.
And yes, incase you were thinking it, alternative online identities have always existed. Tumblr blogs, private X accounts and anonymous forums all offered versions of the same thing. But the resurgence of Finsta’s now feels particularly telling as they’re offering something increasingly rare online: intimacy.
A half-eaten bowl of pasta, a flash-on bathroom selfie, an accidental screenshot, a sunset that isn’t particularly the best but was beautiful in the moment. These kind of images would never survive the main grid. Yet they feel valuable because they’re evidence that someone had a good day.
And after a long day at work, I normally open Instagram hoping to see what my friends did over the weekend or on their holiday. But instead, I somehow find myself twenty posts deep into a stream of creators, advertisements and content designed to hold my attention for as long as possible. It’s no wonder, then, that people are gravitating towards things that feel imperfect or even quitting the apps. Maybe I speak for myself when I say this, but I’m tired of seeing perfection all the time.
A perfect post says, ‘Look at me.’ While a messy post says, ‘You were there.’ That’s what Finstas offer. A photo that only makes sense to five friends. They’re some of the most relatable things online because they reflect one of the most fundamental parts of the human experience for our desire to be seen, to connect, and to find ourselves reflected in other people’s lives – the good, the bad, and everything in between.
They were never created for an audience in the first place. And today when social media is obsessed with curation, the Finsta’s appeal lies in their indifference. They’re messy and often objectively mundane – which is precisely why they feel so human. What’s more relatable than that?
Image: one
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