“Teenagers want an outlet to express their opinions with the same kind of conviction that they generally might not be able to express at home or other parts of their life,” said Hal, a 17-year-old admin on @toomanyflops_.

“Liberal flop accounts point out problematic behavior or spread liberal opinions,” said Bea, a 16-year-old in Maryland who founded the account @hackflops. “Conservative accounts post about feminism and whether the movement is good or bad, whether you can be conservative and LGBT, or Black Lives Matter and whether it’s better or worse than All Lives Matter … I’ve formed my opinions largely based upon what I see in the flop community.”

Dann, a 17-year-old in New Jersey, said his politics have tilted rightward after spending more time on flop accounts. “I was very left-leaning when I started this account, very [social-justice warrior],” he said. “ And over the course of running the account, my opinions have shifted. I was exposing myself to more stuff, then the things I was posting as a flop I kind of ended up agreeing with more and more,” he said. While he used to post flops calling for gun control, now he believes in the Second Amendment and is “pro–gun rights.”

Ngl, this blew my mind -💁‍♀️ A post shared by ᵈᶦᶜᵏ ᵇᵃᶫᶫˢ (@feminism.flops) on Jul 20, 2018 at 1:29pm PDT

Some flop accounts’ admins hold wildly disparate beliefs, which can end up causing problems when it comes to retaining followers. “There’s many diverse opinions among the admins ourselves on @toomanyflops_,” Hal said. “Some of us are pro-life, some are pro-choice, some are transgender, some are religious, some are atheist ... As account admins, we always try to engage in dialogue and promote discourse.”

But sometimes that doesn’t work out. Hal said one flop he posted about a pansexual musician ended up losing the account a couple hundred followers overnight. He worries about flop accounts turning Instagram into more of an echo chamber. “Everyone wants to see content they agree with,” he said.

Most teens say they’ll at least try to engage with content on flop accounts from both sides, even if just to find more flop ideas for their own accounts. “We aren’t forcing anyone to see our content, but if you want to come and educate yourself, have a good laugh, you can see kids your own age talking about important topics,” Alma said.

The main thing teens who engage with flop accounts share is a strong distrust of the news media. Teens said they turned to flop accounts specifically because they didn’t believe what they read in the news, saw on TV, or even were taught in their U.S.-history class, since, as one teen saw it, their teacher is just one person giving an opinion. Teen flop-account admins and followers said they found information on flop accounts to be far more reliable because it could be crowdsourced and debated.