Over the past month Essena O’Neill has become a very famous because she decided to quit social media. She has decided to leave her thousands of followers in order to reveal what is fake about social media. Essena has deleted over 2000 of her pictures on Instagram and changed the captions of pictures to reveal what really happened behind the scenes.She has now started her own website “Let’s Be Game Changers” in an attempt to become more authentic online.
Jose Van Dijk argues that “Platform tactics such as the popularity principle and ranking mechanisms hardly involve contingent technological structures; instead, they are firmly rooted in an ideology that values hierarchy, competition, and a winner-takes-all mind-set” (21). Van Dijk is referring to how people on social media have become extremely cautious of likes and followers. I believe that Essena O’Neill supports Van Dijks argument in regards to the culture of connectivity because of the large following she had before and after quitting social media. The idea that social media “values hierarchy, competition, and a winner-takes-all mind-set” supports Essena’s reasoning for quitting social media. Essena describes social media as “...a system based on social approval, likes, validation in views, success in followers. It's perfectly orchestrated self absorbed judgement” (Grant). This shows how people see social media as a way to mediate approval instead of using it as a tool to stay connected with others. Since quitting social media Essena’s following has continued to grow as she gained more attention than ever before. Although she quite social media because it is not an accurate representation of real life, she still continues to use social media to spread her message of a veganism and living an authentic life.
(http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/article-3301762/Instagram-model-18-vowed-abandon-online-celebrity-issues-appeal-help-pay-new-simpler-existence.html)
I disagree that we use social media as approval, rather then using it as a tool for not only to be connected, but also as a role model, someone or something to aspire to and hope to achieve, which can be positive, or negative depending on the situation. In this case, exploiting someones Instagram for companies to gain attention and money.
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