Essena
O’Neil skyrocketed to fame instantly this past month and many of you may be
wondering why. The 18-year-old Australian decided to leave all of her followers
and her success on social media behind in order to “expose the truth” behind
her online posts. She replaced her popular Instagram photos with realistic
descriptions of shots while also deleting almost 2,000 pictures from her account.
Van
Dijck argues that the culture of social exchange is staked on neoliberal
economic principles. She states that connectivity occurs through the process of
continuous pressure from “both peers and technologies – to expand through
competition and gain power through strategic alliances” (21). This stance
aligns itself with Essena O’Neils reasons for quitting social media. O’Neil
attributes her reasons for quitting social media due to the fact that social
media is a fabricated platform. The thousands of followers she had, plus the many
deals she had made with companies along the sides to showcase their products, proves that Dijck’s argument is appropiate. Pressure from peers and technologies
attribute to these fake personas’s people display to the world on social media.
This idea to be popular online and well “liked”, literally and figuratively, proves that social media platforms can be rather intrusive and
phony.
Although
I do agree with Van Dijck’s argument regarding connectivity, and I whole heartedly understand why
Essena O’Neil made the decision to quit social media, I feel like O’Neil needs
to be accountable for some of her own actions as well. Social media presences
are becoming increasingly more fake - there is no denying that. However the pressure to receive millions of likes
and followers comes attached with how YOU display yourself online. Zack James the CEO of
Rise9, which is a company that helps other people grow their social media
followings, took to Facebook to reveal his discomfort with Essena O’Neil
blaming social media for her unhappiness. He stated: “Social Media can be
whatever the user desires it to be. Allowing yourself to become pressured into
a false life that you're uncomfortable with is the result of your own actions
and intent.” As
James stated, social media can be whatever the user makes it out to be. If you
feel the need to create this fake ideology of yourself online, it is you that
has been pressured into a false life that you are not comfortable with. That is
no one’s fault but your own. Yes there are contributing factors to the increase
in the amount of pressure received, however at the end of the day you are the
driver in your own car, in control of your happiness and how you represent yourself online. Essena O’Neil is 18-years-old, legally an adult. If she was
this uncomfortable with how she was portraying herself online she should have
spoken up a lot sooner about her uneasiness. By deleting her social media platforms O'Neil was taking a step in the right direction. However, her inability to take responsible for her own actions that lead to her unhappiness proved to the world that social media isn't the entire entity to blame here.
(http://www.cosmopolitan.com/lifestyle/news/a48781/ceo-calls-out-essena-oneill-on-facebook/
)
Hi Tamara,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your blog post and agree with your argument. I definitely agree that you control and establish content you post on social media. Furthermore, your social media persona and identity is solely based on how you portray yourself on various social media platforms. O'Neill is technically still on social media with her new website and various interactions with the public. However, O'Neill is portraying a different persona and image on her new platform. This reinforces Zack James' argument that social media can indeed be whatever the user wants it to be.
Cheers
Hey Tamara!
ReplyDeleteYou’ve made some important points in your blog post and I definitely agree with you when you say that you whole-heartedly understand why Essena O’Neill made the decision to quit social media, but that you think she needs to hold herself accountable for some of her own actions as well. In her video we learn that, as a young girl she strived for the kind of recognition that she eventually gained before quitting social media, so I really think she got caught up in all the fame and then came to the realization that that wasn’t what she wanted anymore, as it was taking away from her happiness, along with taking her away from things in life that are much more important than likes, followers, and comments. I think that all of this instafame created a false sense of self and self-esteem for her, and does the same for many others too. Whilst I appreciate her intentions of bringing light to issues that social media can cause, I do not believe that everybody is as obsessed with their accounts as she once was, and I’m certainly thankful that I’m not one of those people – and I’m sure you can agree! Overall, you’ve written a great post and I really enjoyed reading it. Happy Holidays!
Great points Tamara. I agree that social media is becoming more and more fake and it definitely does fit Van Dijck's ideas. Your points on social media being what you desire it to be are also very valid and I totally agree. Social media can be used in a variety of different ways and there are hundreds of different types of social presences you can find from comedy and memes to modelling and high fashion. Essena chose to emerge herself in to a world on social media where being pretty, thin and desirable was the standard and she continued to post content that fit that mold. So for those reasons, I believe there is some insincerity in her argument. As you said, she would have backed out long ago if it was truly making her as uncomfortable as it was. Although I do believe the conversation of what is real versus fake on social media is one that can be important and interesting, the approach Essena took made it hard to take seriously and actually caused me to side against her.
ReplyDeleteOverall, I really felt your argument had a lot of strong points that I agreed with. Thanks for sharing!