Blog Post #4- Essena O'Neil and Neoliberal Economic Principles

Over the past few weeks, the social networking world has been shaken by a video published by Instagram and YouTube star, Essena O’Neil. In her video entitled, ‘Why I REALLY am quitting social media”, O’Neil divulges the truth behind the glamourized images we consume on social media. In a discussion surrounding her withdrawal from social media, O’Neil stated:

I was addicted to what others thought of me, simply because it was so readily available. I was severely addicted. I believed how many likes and followers I had correlated to how many people liked me. I didn’t even see it happening, but social media had become my sole identity. I didn’t even know what I was without it (BuzzFeed, 2015).

As exemplified by this quote, it is clear that O’Neil’s contentions about social media support what van Dijck refers to as, the “neoliberal economic principles” of the culture of connectivity of contemporary social media platforms. Van Dijck’s conceptualization of neoliberal economic principles addresses the ways social media technologies are used to perpetuate “competition and power through strategic alliances” (Van Dijck, 21).

O’Neil’s expression of her experiences with social media emphasize the falsities that are disseminated through social media, in an attempt to gain social power and recognition. Additionally, many avid social media users tend to compare their number of followers and likes against fellow users or ‘competitors’. In this way, there is an undeniable interconnectedness between technology and sociality. Many social media users have been conditioned to believe that the attention received on a given platform equates power and success. O’Neil argues that the manipulated images shared on social media undermine the process of identity formation, as well as perpetuate unattainable standards.