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 

