Do You Judge An Instagram Feed By Its Cover?

We’re all guilty of social-media stalking, but how often are we making character judgments based off each other's images? It’s hard not to look at the filtered grids on our feeds and a) experience serious FOMO or b) judge the hell out of the person in front of the lens. But how many people are using social media to showcase their authentic selves? Are our judgments based on some truth, or is what we see on Instagram just the façades that people hide behind? So many Instagram users edit images in order to make their lives seem "cooler" — and there are a growing number of social media influencers who are spilling the dirt on how unreal their Instagram feeds actually are. So we decided to take matters into our own hands and run a test: people IRL vs. URL. We had one of our social media experts peek at fellow R29ers' Instagrams and, well, judge them. Watch the video above to see Refinery29's Michael Brown analyze Instagram accounts before meeting the users face-to-face. Will his perceptions speak to who these people are, or will they unveil the pretense of their feeds?