Trends widely popularized by teens are typically foreign to other age groups, but not often are they actually risky. Such is the case for the most burgeoning social media fad of Sandpoint High School today: trash accounts.

Trash accounts, or finstas (fake instagrams), are secondary social media accounts created by people for posting material not suitable for their primary account. Many use them to post partying with alcohol and other drugs.

“My trash account is basically just me being confident about my body and me partying,” junior Scarlett Harper said.

“I just like expressing what I’m up to, and the people that I’m comfortable with that view [my trash account] are pretty cool with it.”

While some teenagers are into socializing with trash accounts, others could care less about the fad.

“I’ve seen some that I think, ‘you should probably not do that’, but I don’t really care about them. People can do what they want,” junior Jennie Maddux said.

Teens documenting parties is no groundbreaking phenomena, and the trash account trend shows the movement of this activity to the internet.

“The misnomer is that…taking photos at parties and stuff like that is a new thing. It’s not …we just had to develop the film,” journalism teacher William Love said.

“Based on that, if I was younger today I might have had [a trash account].”

Trash accounts featuring drugs or drinking can be risky for their owners, as their illegal content solicits them to legal and other consequences if found by adults.  Recently at the school, a few soccer players’ trash accounts were brought to the attention of coach Connor Baranski. Because these athletes were technically not in season, no official consequential actions were taken.

“While, in this case, it didn’t result in any quick, specific punishments, there are some natural punishments that could happen,” Baranski said.

“I think it is a stupid idea to use a trash account to have this alter-ego because…even if you think it’s anonymous to people like me, like adults, a simple, five second search allowed me to see all the people involved with that incident.”

Trash accounts are risky in the short term for all underage owners, as consequential action can be taken by the high school. The risk doesn’t stop there, though: this content is accessible to prospective colleges searching students, as well as future employers.

“I know stories of… high school students that are looking for scholarships and don’t get them because of things on the internet. Even if you delete pictures within your trash account, those things still exist in the world wide web,” Baranski said.