instagram oddities | 2/21/25

Welcome to make you think, a newsletter about being alive in the endtimes. If you just signed up, welcome! You can find previous editions of the newsletter right here. If you know someone who might like this, click that little forward button and pass it along!

instagram put me in a very peculiar spot this week by suggesting that i follow the finsta (which, for the washed uninitiated is shorthand for "fake instagram"– it's a private alt account that is rougher and more "real" than your main feed.)of extremely famous actor and recording artist reneé rapp. her main account – which looks just like the account of a famous 25 year old – has 2.1m followers. her finsta has 320k followers and is, critically, public. the only difference between these two accounts is probably purley managerial – a staffer at reneé's agency runs @reneerapp and reneé probably runs this account.

the reason this spot is peculiar to me is because i can't tell if it's gauche to even talk about this or not? or if it is actually totally fine because she's a) internationally famous and b) a third of a million people follow this account. it is a considered choice by her digital team to let her have this bifurcated social strategy and it's obviously working – reneé gets a bunch of engagement on both accounts and the "value" of the finsta (i.e. feeding the parasocial relationship that modern celebrity thrives on) outweighs whatever negatives you can think of. but i'm still so reticent to even mention the handle (it's not hard to find) because i do think that this famous person deserves to have at least some semblance of a normal life. as we move deeper and deeper into an ideological recession though, i am struggling to rationalize the behavior of the privileged whenever it is not in direct support of the marginalized.

also who the hell am i kidding, she's got a secret, third instagram for her shoot friends. who cares.

let's do a quick sports roundup:

• the F1 75 event was one of the most poorly paced events i've seen on tv. it was very funny to watch red bull get booed off the stage. vcarb has the best livery of the year even though their rollout video is the one that made me want to spoon my eyes out the most.
• the 2025 nba all star game was intentionally killed by adam silver. here is the theory i outlined in a group chat i'm in:

i think next year the game happens after the season (or maybe the week between the conference finals and the finals) and has a format like that of the nfl pro bowl games.

• the 4 nations face off, while having a terrible name, was awesome. hockey rules.
• unrivaled (the women's winter 3x3 league) continues to be great

for next week's edition i'd love to answer some audience questions! in a little over a month this little newsletter has already hit the subscriber goal i had for the first six months. i'm really appreciative and i'm excited to keep doing this. hit the comment button down there and ama.

catch y'all next week.

-

niki