Instagram Has Its Own ‘Finsta’

Here’s why Instagram made its very own fake account.

BY MARÍA JOSÉ GUTIERREZ CHAVEZ, EDITORIAL FELLOW

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Instagram

On social media, a curated version of life is the default. And so for many years now, users have used secondary Instagram accounts called “finstas” to post like nobody’s watching. As it turns out, even Instagram has one.

Filled with aesthetic “shitposts,” the account @notfit4main debuted in October last year with a bio that reads “guess who.”  

Many users speculated that Instagram was behind the account for months since its first followers were mainly Meta employees. But it wasn’t until last week that the social media company confirmed ownership of the account to  Rachel Karten’s Link in Bio Substack.

“We’re seeing our community, especially younger users, really lean into the spirit of finstas by …leaning away from polished content (i.e., photo dumps, less filters, etc.),” Jackie Tan, Creative Lead at Instagram, told Inc.

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“The goal was never for the account to be “secret” – just a more low-key way to share a different side of @instagram,” Chan says.

“When I emailed Instagram about @notfit4main, they confirmed that they are indeed behind the account,” Karten wrote.

The first couple of posts were a series of carousels with random photos overlaid with text, unassumingly blending in with other content in the platform. For instance, a photo of a random window with the phrase “I believe you can do anything because you are everything.”

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