A few weekends ago I was with a bunch of 30 year old’s enjoying a long anticipated weekend basking in the sun. Later in the weekend, my friend’s 22-year-old cousin joined us. By the end of the weekend, we realized our 30-year-old vocabulary did in fact make us old, TikTok dancers create dances on a whim and do not follow a standard 8 count for us ‘old folks’ to follow along, and more importantly (and equally shocking), finstas are back.

From a Gen-Zer voice to the sounds of my keyboard, “Finstas have always been more authentic than Instagram.” A finsta, or fake Instagram, is still valued in the younger generation for the lack of clout people portray, in comparison to the traditional app. Gen-Z enjoys the freedom they have to post what they want without any consequences and finstas rarely show selfies of the corresponding account owner. If you find it particularly weird that Gen-Z — the generation all about transparency, authenticity, and truth — finds so much solace in a social media platform where they can be as fake or real as they want, then you are not alone. We feel it too.

Authenticity and genuineness has played a huge part in the pandemic via the racial recognizing and it feels ironic that the younger generation will cling to finsta accounts and the fake lifestyles it houses for entertainment, yet cancel anyone they deem have crossed the line. Seems like a double standard… but that’s just us. How do you feel?

Photo via Anna Parini/The New York Times