The pains of sharing a photo on Instagram are almost never ending. A pimple too big, a filter too “cheugy” and a smile too large can all be deemed a final flaw. Even after finding the right photo, there is still the aesthetic to consider — pulling and twisting a photo you love to fit into the dollhouse that is your profile page. This pre-post step is mandatory: You have to clean up the clutter in an image, so it can perfectly occupy an ornate frame like an open house nightmare. To be honest, this elaborate process is all too much for me. I haven’t posted on Instagram in, like, a year. Or, well, I haven’t posted on my “main” account that is. During the summer, I cultivated my “fake Instagram,” a.k.a finsta, as a chaotic conglomeration of bad poetry and midnight escapades to all 10 of my followers. This smaller, private account allowed me to vent about my feelings and post about private life in a way that my main account could never allow. Why in the world would I want my aunt — one of my many main-Instagram followers — to know when I’m clubbing, cruising and crashing? Unlike Facebook, there is a level of anonymity that is fostered on Instagram. You’re allowed to have multiple accounts under the same contact information. In fact, these accounts aren’t considered connected to each other, giving the Gen Z user the freedom to make as many niche, obscure accounts as their heart desires. And the birth of finsta was inevitable after Instagram became mainstream. When you have hundreds of followers, finding a post that makes everyone happy is overwhelming. What might be funny to your college friends is “blasphemy” in the eyes of your uncle. As opposed to these anonymous, niche accounts, the level of reality depicted on main Instagram accounts is abysmal. There is a saturated market for face editing apps. There are websites that will create special instagram caption fonts for your next post. On some apps, you even have the ability to track how and when your followers frequent your account. But running a personal Instagram shouldn’t feel like being a marketing manager. Consolidating photos that are cohesive to your account’s “aesthetic” can look super cute, but is it true to oneself? To get those photos means leaving parts yourself out of the picture. Setting up photos at brunch feels a little artificial if you wouldn’t be caught awake before 1 p.m. on a weekend. Social media shouldn’t feel limiting. Posting on your main page shouldn’t feel like adding set pieces to a retail display. It should feel like sharing what you love with people who care. Sure, I have that sense of authentic closeness among my 10 finsta followers, but at what cost? Why lead this Hannah Montana fantasy — with girl-next-door Miley on a finsta and popstar Hannah on the main — when it is easier to just cultivate an authentic digital persona on one main account? Crusty dog photos, crying selfies and all? Gen Z has taken note of these questions, and Instagram culture has shifted. People don’t use their finstas as much, maybe because the pandemic showed just how tiring performing on social media can be in the end. Now, mains are messier — in a good way. It starts out small. A post of a sunset is met with a Vine (a.k.a. an extinct TikTok predecessor) quote. Suddenly, Twitter screenshots are used to punctuate the ends of slideshow posts. You repost content from @umichaffirmations more often. Insta stories are now home to Spotify recommendations and blurry candid photos. I appreciate the candidness of the people I follow. Their mains are messy in a way that a room is lived in. Sometimes you don’t make your bed, and that is okay. Sometimes you have pit stains when taking a selfie, and that is also okay. Your pit sweat shouldn’t kill your happiness just like the assortment of cups that adorn your room isn’t clutter, but chic. I mean, my room right now is college-core, raccoon-eye chic; interior design is not my main concern. The spaces we exist in shouldn’t be ready-made store displays. Instagram shouldn’t feel like the dorm room shown to you during a campus tour. Social media is not the room where all your dirty clothes, mismatched socks and retainers are thrown in the closet. That is so 2015. Let the chachkas you love and collect bathe in the sun. For so long, I thought social media was a thing to be graded or gawked at. But it can be something to explore and grow into when you get messy on main. Wednesday, September 29, 2021 — 4 Arts Messy on Main: The life and death of finsta MATTHEW EGGERS Daily Arts Writer Content warning: Addiction, substance use “Euphoria,” Gen Z’s favorite show about Gen Z has just announced plans for its second season. Based on creator Sam Levinson’s “own experience with anxiety, addiction and depression,” HBO’s racy drama about high school follows a group of students as they grapple with their own post-pubescent hurdles, from the pressures of athletic and academic stardom to deceit on dating apps. It’s called “Euphoria,” but “a feeling of intense happiness and excitement” is not what you feel as you begin the first episode, observing footage of the World Trade Center attacks. “Euphoria” begins the same way Gen Z was thrust into the world: amid the violent ruins of post 9/11 America. The unrelentingly heavy tone of the show, which depicts subjects such as drug use, violence and revenge child pornography, has made it equally loved and hated for what fans see as accuracy and what critics see as glorification of its subject matter. The backlash can perhaps be interpreted as an example of what happens when art imitates life a little too vibrantly, and here, Gen Z’s own trauma is projected back to us in moody technicolor. “Euphoria” stars Rue Bennett, a 17-year- old teen struggling with addiction, who in an ironic twist is played by Zendaya (“Dune”), our generation’s favorite Disney star. The students are revealed to us through Rue’s unreliable narration, and we experience the highs and lows of high school as Rue does. As a result, while the harsh realities of drug use and addiction are made clear (in the second episode of the first season, Rue is shown laying in a pile of her own vomit after overdosing), Rue’s altered state gives the trippy scenes in “Euphoria” the most beautiful visuals, music and cinematography in the entire show. Yet, somehow, these scenes maintain a balance between being heavily stylized and viscerally realistic. Ultimately, the way “Euphoria” deals with its heaviest topics is uncomfortable and shocking. “Euphoria” and its unapologetically bold depiction of mature themes have fueled many critics; some conservative organizations have even called for the show to be removed from the air due to what they see as the glamorization of violence, pills and sex. The Parents Television and Media Council, a U.S. Christian censorship advocacy group, expressed concern that “HBO, with its new high school-centered show ‘Euphoria,’ appears to be overtly, intentionally marketing extremely graphic adult content — sex, violence, profanity and drug use – to teens and preteens.” The media review platform Movie Guide has called upon its readers to sign a petition demanding HBO pull “Euphoria” from its programming, which it describes as “vile beyond belief.” It is perhaps due to all of this that “Euphoria” has already become a cult classic — Gen Z’s “Pulp Fiction.” In the years following the show’s release, Gen Zers have cultivated a so-called “Euphoria aesthetic,” using colors and styles emblematic of the show so fully and so frequently that it is hard to imagine our generation before “Euphoria” aired in 2019. Teens across the country began wearing glitter-tear makeup and dressing up as characters Cassie and Maddie for Halloween. The actors’ Instagram accounts have gained millions of followers, and many fashion brands catered towards Gen Z have adopted the bold style of the show’s universe. The way Gen Z has adopted the “Euphoria” aesthetic makes it feel as though the show is the mirror Gen Z didn’t know it needed. The generation’s embrace of the series is more about teens expressing their identity through technology and self-discovery and feeling understood than wanting to glorify substance use and sexual assault. Levinson claims that, for “Euphoria,” he “was just trying to capture that kind of heightened sense of emotion when you’re young, and how relationships feel.” This decision, he says, was made to help older generations understand Gen Z, and for members of Gen Z to realize they are not alone as the gap between generations continues to widen and technology increasingly impacts how we live our lives. Like characters Rue, Jules, Cassie, Maddie and Nate, I was born into a post- 9/11 America. I, too, sat through lockdown drills, consumed media I probably shouldn’t have at my age. Though “Euphoria” is more severe than my experience, for me and many of my friends, the series represents many of the problems that we face and accurately reflects our generation’s fears and anxieties. Unlike the multitude of other shows about high school for Gen Z that I’ve recently watched, seeing these issues, albeit in the show’s caricatured, melodramatic depictions, felt cathartic and validated my own struggles with anxiety and technology throughout high school. “Euphoria” is Gen Z, in all of its glittery, confusing, pixelated glory. ‘Euphoria’ is Gen Z’s looking glass JADEN KATZ Daily Arts Writer Design by Madison Grosvenor The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com Design by Madison Grosvenor