A social media identity crisis | Maia’s Inner Monologue

I open my spam account on Instagram, ready to post a picture of myself that I actually like — a rarity.    

My hair looks good, my skin is cooperating and the lighting is doing exactly what I need it to do. I even like my smile — not too forced, not too casual.   

It’s the kind of picture that makes me think, wow, I should be perceived more often, but only under very specific lighting conditions — and from the right side.  

But then I pause. 

This is a good picture — like, suspiciously good. It’s almost so good that I think, “maybe this should go on my main.” And suddenly, I can’t just throw it onto my spam. No, this deserves a proper debut, a thoughtful caption and a strategic posting time. 

It deserves the main. 

So, I don’t post it — not on spam, not on main. It just stays in my camera roll, stuck between “not effortless enough for main” and “too good for spam.” 

That’s when I realize how insane this is.  

I have two separate Instagram accounts: one where I pretend to be effortlessly cool, fun, artsy and have my life together, and one where I’m supposed to be unfiltered, unbothered and free. And yet, here I am — filtering and bothering. 

Even on my spam account, I pause and second guess. I sift through posts, unconsciously sorting what’s “main-worthy” and what isn’t — even though my “main” is just a curated feed of my most presentable selfies and snapshots with friends.  

We all have our main Instagram, the place where we only post when we look good enough, interesting enough and effortless enough. And then we have our spam, our finsta, our digital safe space where we’re actually ourselves. Right? 

Except, even that isn’t totally true.

Even on spam, I’m still curating. The audience is smaller, sure — people who know what I look like mid-breakdown. But that doesn’t mean I don’t care what they think, which is why I put so much effort into pretending I don’t. 

And if I’m putting effort into seeming like I don’t care, doesn’t that mean I do?

I’ve been a victim of this for years. I had a finsta when I was younger called @penzywise — a play on Pennywise, which I thought was incredibly clever at the time. 

I still do. 

That account was supposed to be the real me — a place where I could be unfiltered and say whatever was on my mind without overthinking it. And yet, I still found myself curating even that — picking which bad selfies to post, making sure my rants were funny enough and deciding what level of insanity was cool insanity and what was just embarrassing. 

At this point, I have to ask — where does my actual personality live?

If I’m too curated on main but still a little too calculated on spam, where does that leave me? Is my most authentic self just floating around in my camera roll, trapped between screenshots of texts I’ll never send and pictures I was too afraid to post?   

Maybe. 

Because the truth is, even when we think we’ve escaped the need for validation, it finds a way to sneak back in. We tell ourselves that our spam accounts are for us, that they exist outside the pressures of a main account.  

But validation isn’t just about likes or comments. Sometimes, it’s about proving something to ourselves — proving we’re funny enough, cool enough and self-aware enough to mock the very thing we’re participating in. 

Maybe that’s why I hesitate before posting anything, even on spam. Because at the end of the day, I’m still looking for something. I don’t want to just be seen, but to be perceived — exactly the way I want to be. 

Anyway, I never posted the picture. But I look at it sometimes and think, “damn.” She deserves to be seen.  

And if you follow @penzerpics, I actually really love you because I’m letting you see whatever I decide to throw in there. No strategy, no performance — just the things that felt real to me in the moment. 

Which, ironically, might be the most authentic thing I do online.