Instagram dump accounts, commonly referred to as the “dump,” have become increasingly popular among Generation Z users as alternatives to their carefully curated main accounts. Amid increasing pressures to maintain polished online personas, these semi-private spaces enable users to share more mundane, spontaneous, and personally meaningful content with a selectively chosen audience. In doing so, users continuously negotiate audience boundaries by deciding who is granted access to their dump accounts and manage self-disclosure by determining what aspects of themselves are revealed or withheld. As such, dump accounts provide a distinctive site for examining how identity is constructed and performed through platform-specific communicative behaviors and practices. Drawing on in-depth interviews and thematic analysis, this study investigates how Filipino Gen Z users construct and negotiate their identities through Instagram dump accounts. It also examines how Instagram's technological affordances shape practices of audience selection, self-disclosure, and identity performance. By positioning dump accounts as alternative spaces for self-presentation, the study contributes to an understanding of how ordinary social media activities become meaningful sites of identity work and relational boundary management. Situated within the Philippine context, the study also contributes to discussions on media technologies by offering nuanced insights into how Filipino youth make sense of identity, privacy, and everyday self-presentation through Instagram dump accounts.

Authors:
Kenneth Rey Recio, University of the Philippines Manila, Philippines

About the Presenter(s)
Kenneth Rey O. Recio is an Assistant Professor at the University of the Philippines Manila. His interests include communication and media and employee experiences in the workplace.

See this presentation on the full schedule – Wednesday Schedule

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