I made my first Instagram account when I was fourteen and hungry – for validation, for crushes, and for abs wrapped in Calvin Kleins. At the time, no one around me knew about it. Not my parents, not my friends. It was just a tiny corner of the internet where I could watch anything and convince myself that it was about body goals, not boy crushes.

Back then, I didn’t even have a phone of my own. I shared one with my mother and then my sister. So every time I went “exploring,” I’d clear every last bit of evidence from my Instagram search history like I was covering up a murder. My fingerprints wiped clean, my curiosity reined in, my queerness hidden between explore and deletes.

Soon enough, Instagram had dropped its Close Friends feature like a gift. And so I adapted. Queer posts? Maybe a story about my latest crush? But only to Close Friends. Of course, I made sure never to like gay reels, never followed any suspicious accounts,

I had a finsta for all that.

This Instagram handle was theatre. Carefully curated, tightly controlled. But necessary.

I even had two or three female friends always ready to comment “hotttt🔥” on my posts for the sake of plausible heterosexuality. And in the razzmatazz of that hide-and-seek, I didn’t realise it was sorta like a digital closet for me.

Not Just Me: The Finsta Generation

As I met more queer people, I realised I wasn’t alone. It’s the same architecture of digital survival through finstas (fake Instagrams), Reddit threads, VPNs, and clever little hacks that allowed them to be themselves online.

To confirm, I reached out to three friends with finstas.

“Yeah, I have a finsta. I had to. My main account has like 200 relatives and everyone from my college. There’s no way I could post anything remotely gay without someone raising eyebrows. [My finsta’s] where I post my real thoughts.”
 – Kabir, 31 (he/they)

An Unsafe Place to Be Yourself

Online, we’re all shapeshifters. But danger is still there. Instagram’s “suggested for you” feature is sorta like a traitor in disguise… outing mutuals, connecting family members with curious church kids who think your sexuality is a virus they can report to your parents.

“A kid from church found my finsta & he’s going to out me. What can I do to prepare? Clearly, someone who I thought was a friend is actually someone I can’t trust. But he had screenshots and screen recordings. He sent me paragraphs of homophobic abuse and informed me that he will be notifying first my parents, then everyone else from our community.”
 – From Reddit

What if you accidentally followed a queer influencer, or commented on a reel? Or:

Liked a suspiciously sparkly meme or reacted with 🏳️‍🌈 or 💅

Got tagged in a Pride Month story by a well-meaning but chaotic friend

Engaged with or reshared someone’s queer-coded story or post

Showed up in the “People You May Know” of a visibly queer person (or vice versa)

Had Spotify or Twitter bios linked that screamed queer

Some of us get confronted. Others, screen-recorded.

But users adapt. They open a finsta, a fake Instagram. These accounts are away from familial surveillance. They’re only for tight circles of trusted followers. There are no contact details linked to reduce detection. It is visibility with surgical precision.

Here’s how it happens:

Multiple Accounts: Many maintain “main” accounts for family and “finstas” for freedom.

Privacy Acrobatics: Micro-tactics like blocking or restricting family, archiving posts, using cis-normative pronouns, avoiding location tags, setting ultra-filtered Close Friends lists, and using code words to avoid outing.

Obfuscation: Some users avoid tagging, liking, or RSVPing to anything queer. Others follow or post decoy content. I know friends who’ve celebrated Pride-but just as allies. I also know some who had to go as far as posting homophobic stories just to give their family some somber relief.

Platform Hopping: Using platforms like Snapchat and Reddit that offer more control.

It’s all risk management. But how do social media apps respond?

Platform Personas and Design Flaws

Once upon a time, the internet was where queer folks could breathe. But soon, platforms got into a race: each trying to become the platform where you can do it all. And the algorithm, which once seemed cute, became the predator it always was meant to be.

There’s algorithm bias, shadowbanning, deplatforming, content moderation that punishes queer expression, and targeted harassment campaigns…

“If you suddenly follow a bunch of gay IG accounts, and like their posts, it’s like a Gay Bat Signal.”
 – Reddit

But at the same time:

“I’ve seen posts of queer women get taken down for ‘violating guidelines,’ but reels calling queer folks sinners or mentally ill stay up because they’re quoting religious texts or hiding behind ‘opinions.’”
 – Dr. Abhi, 27 (he/him)

Let’s ask some real questions: Is Instagram a safe place to be—for everyone?

It seems like they’re onto something from how frequently the rules, guidelines, and algorithms change. A friend’s Instagram was taken down with no reason attributed. It could be that he is—though I don’t accept the nomenclature—too gay. Or maybe he showed too much skin. Or looked too feminine.

And while I miss his posts, I have a huge problem with what stays up. I’ve seen reels where someone called queer folks “mentally ill” and “a threat to children.” Instagram said it didn’t go against community guidelines. Apparently quoting a religious text makes it okay?

Sometimes it feels like when it comes to queer safety, platforms like Instagram and Facebook weren’t built wrong. They were built for someone else.

Design shouldn’t just accommodate queer users—it should protect them. Researchers suggest:

Temporary soft-blocks

Audience segmentation tools

Improved discoverability controls

And yet, some of these features already exist… kind of.

Instagram’s Close Friends (also my favourite) allows users to share stories with a limited, trusted audience. But it’s limited by platform logic. You’re still on the same account. You still have the same followers, followings, and suggestions, visible to everyone. You’re still at the mercy of screenshots, algorithm leaks, or betrayals from someone within the circle.

In short: it’s helpful, but not foolproof.

Until then, queer users are forced to become expert UX designers of their own survival and make the best of the tiny little block button.

But is it just the platforms? Or is there something else too?

“I have two finstas. One is just queer stuff… memes and all. But the other one is for the really close circle. Only the few people I trust not to judge me when I follow kink or BDSM pages. Because yeah, even within the queer community, there’s stuff you get judged for. So I just made another layer of safety.”
 — Rohan, 21 (he/him)

Imagined Surveillance and Self-Censorship

Social media asks you to be yourself-but does it?

Every post is a performance. Even the blurry selfie is laced with invisible calculations. Who’s watching? Who might be watching?

So we self-edit because many a times, people from the community, who you thought were your people, will judge. Because even within queer circles, there are hierarchies. You have to ask what’s “cool queer,” what’s “cringe,” what’s “too much.”

It’s not lying. It’s like holding a flashlight in a dark room. We choose where to shine-and, more importantly, where not to.

So, maybe staying in the digital closet isn’t just a strategy. It’s part overthinking, part imagined surveillance, part self-censorship, and part shame too.

And What Happens When the Closet Is Compromised?

Closets on the internet aren’t made of wood. They’re made of passwords, privacy settings, blocked contacts, and fingers crossed behind the screen.

But even digital closets have cracks.

“I had a second account just for queer stuff,” wrote one teen on Reddit. “But Instagram’s algorithm outed me. A gay page I followed got recommended to someone I knew. He questioned me on WhatsApp. Then blocked me.”

For many queer youth, especially in conservative or religious households, it means isolation. Verbal abuse. Physical danger. Losing everything-from friends to home.

This is the cost of being queer online:

Platforms built for connection become exposure traps

Algorithms meant to recommend end up revealing

The people you thought were friends, sometimes aren’t

And the safest space-your finsta-can be turned against you

Finding Freedom and Community

Finstas offer freedom. Not just to post thirst traps and memes-but to explore identity, follow queer creators, and breathe without fear of being watched.

“Following LGBTQ accounts and engaging with their content on my finsta makes me feel safe. It gives me a sense of belonging.”

Instagram seems to have noticed all of this. In late 2023, it began testing a feature called Flipside, a private layer within users’ main accounts, mimicking the function of finstas. However, there’s been no update on it since then.

But let’s be clear-queer users invented this blueprint long before tech formalised it. What platforms are now calling features, users had already hacked for years.

“Sometimes I just scroll through gay reels. That alone can lift my mood.”
 “I’m not sure I would’ve had the chance to explore who I am otherwise.”
 “It’s safer. I feel seen.”

And sometimes, scrolling through gay reels counts as survival.