Blog Post #4: Essena O'Neill and Social Media

In the past few weeks, the Instagram and YouTube star, Essena O'Neill published a video that shocked the social networking world; O'Neill was quitting social media! In her video titled, "Why I REALLY am quitting social media”, O'Neill states the truth behind social media and how fake all the posts and videos really are. O'Neill states that she would spend her whole day surrounded by people that were there solely to take photos for instagram, or to perfectly edit a YouTube video. Her whole world was based around numbers and how many likes, followers and views that her photos and videos received.



The reasoning behind O'Neill quitting social media fits with what Van Dijck refers to as the “neoliberal economic principles” of the culture of connectivity of social media and its platforms.
Van Dijk argues that the culture of connectivity:

is a culture where the organization of social exchange is staked on neoliberal economic principles. Connectivity derives from a continuous pressure—both from peers and technologies--to expand through competition and gain power through strategic alliances” (page 21)

 

O'Neill defined herself by the number of likes she received which lead to the comparison of other social media users, or 'the competition'. Many social media users feel that the number of likes and followers on their account is attributable to power and success, therefore the more attention they have the better. However, O'Neill claims that the fake photos and lifestyles show an unattainable fake life and that you should surround yourself with people that love you instead, because when you define yourself by numbers you are still unhappy.