Just about a month ago now, an
Instagram famous, 18 year old girl named Essena O’Neil blew up the internet as
she posted her ‘final’ farewell to make a point that what social media portrays
is something other than her true self. She explains that she was fed up and
tired of basically living a lie where all of her followers and likes would
define what she would do in her day to day life. O’Neil complained that she was
no longer happy because of the effects that these social media sites had on
her. Every day it was a competition for more likes and she didn’t have many
boundaries to what she would do to gain the interest of people all over the
world.
What she explains in her goodbye
video can be connected to the Neoliberal model explained by Van Dijck. To get
all the fame and attention, O’Neil decided she would define herself by the
pictures she would take and she not only pressured herself to do it but she
felt pressure from her peers, followers and the technology itself to continue
gaining popularity. The Neo-Liberal model is explained as “connectivity derived
from a continuous pressure- from both peers and technology- to expand through
competition and gain power through strategic alliances.”(21) O’Neil and other
avid social media participants compare themselves, their amount of likes and
followers to others which, she explains makes her feel a great deal of anxiety
and stress. These social media powers believe that the attention they get on
these sites equates to success, but what is being posted on these sites are
manipulated photos, which does not represent reality in any form.
Personally I
don’t really feel bad for her, nor do I believe that she will be done with her
online accounts as she is still followed and posting, just on other platforms. To
disconnect ‘fully’ her approach was to reconnect just in other ways. I do
however, think that the idea of fan pressure is heightened on sites like
Instagram because of the nature of the platform so I respect her decision to
log off and step back from that uncontrollable competitive culture.
I really enjoyed how you expressed your personal feeling revolving around Essena's situation. I think she is trying to escape the competitive culture that is involved with social media but I agree that she is not fully removing herself from it. As soon as she deleted her Instagram account she posted a video on YouTube explaining why. Although she deleted her one account her use of YouTube has very similar implications as Instagram. She utilized her popular account to reach as many people as possible. As she has her own channel she is still dealing with a platform that is judged based on the number of subscribers she has, how many likes she can get and she is still subjecting herself to others comments where people are expressing their opinion of her. Not only is she continuing to use YouTube she also created her own blog. Although I do not think she is aware of this, she is still very much involved in social media. She is still under the scrutiny of others and her success is still determined by her online popularity. Regardless I think she makes very valid points in her video about the harms of social media and respect her decision to try to remove herself from the fake lifestyle it supports and try to appreciate herself for her.
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