IMPACT COMMUNICATION
AND INNOVATION
AND INNOVATION
Synonymous with Fake Instagram, Finstagrams are secondary accounts created by Gen Z for a select group of friends to access. According to a 2018 Vidcon Europe report, Gen Z is 40% more likely to own such an account compared to Millennials. Their premise is to escape the "best of me" logic followed by "real" profiles to become something more authentic and intimate.
The existence of these profiles demonstrates the stance of this younger generation and their distaste for the plastic, fake aspect that social media has taken on—partly due to the phenomenon of digital influencers and the logic of influencer marketing. Considering that everyone has flaws and not every photo can turn out perfect, Finstagram profiles are usually created by teenage girls who share funny or embarrassing photos and videos they would never post on their original or official profile.
This is the reflection brought by the website Digital Trends when commenting that it is likely that the flood of affluent people flaunting high-quality, highly posed photos, combined with sponsored posts, has made social media something oppressive, especially for teenage girls.
When asking an 18-year-old girl how her photo posting routine on Instagram worked, for example, she mentioned that there are steps like editing the photo, making sure no one else in her friend group will post the same image, sending it to her friends for approval, thinking of an interesting caption, and then posting the photo and hoping it gets the most likes. "It's insane, but it's what girls do," she comments.
On the other hand, another 18-year-old girl commented that on her Finstagram, she posts photos with her younger sister, pictures of lizards, and other things they would never post on their original profiles. This aligns with the trend toward greater acceptance and body neutrality, especially for women (body positivity and body neutrality).
This generation, which only engages with influencers and people who have a positive and inclusive message to convey, as pointed out in the 2018 Vidcon Europe report, is driving this paradigm shift that has already become a target of interest for brands in their campaigns. Furthermore, cases like virtual influencers are seen both as a certain fallacy, as they are often controlled by companies with strictly economic interests, and as a critique of the logic of influencer marketing.
That is, virtual influencers like Lil Miquela and Shudu Gram are computer-generated characters and have no flaws: they were created to be beautiful and always perfect in their photos. While they reproduce certain posting logic, poses, and content already reinforced by the influencer marketing market itself, they also emerge as a critique or even a parody of this fake strategy, which, on the other hand, can end up backfiring in the case of marketing actions poorly directed at an influencer who does not fit the campaign's profile.
Beyond that, as the VIDCON Europe report reveals, for this generation, social media is a lifestyle and not just entertainment. To connect with them, it is necessary to speak their language and also support their identities. Because they use influencers as a reference for decision-making, it is important that these influencers are aligned with causes that make sense to this generation: this audience seeks diversity, an end to fake news, and an end to cancel culture and digital burnout.
However, controversially, this generation also considers the number of followers an extremely important element, as well as the number of people they keep in their social and offline circles, as pointed out by the Think with Google.
report. More accustomed to using the internet on their phones, it is natural that they end up using image-based social media as a way to express their mediated individuality. But precisely because they are critical and thirsty for transparency, not only do they seek to escape this mechanized influencer logic by creating fake profiles, but they also engage more with micro-influencers because they are more assertive and sincere when acting within their specific niche.
The question that remains, therefore, is how much longer will it be necessary to create fake profiles to be able to express ourselves with honesty and openness? If it’s up to this generation, it’s possible that we will soon normalize and transform the logic of social media, just as projects like #ActisNormal, which uses Instagram to post images that embrace and normalize the imperfections of the human body.
