CS 371

Social Media and Social Life

Blog Post Assignment #4

Last month the world of social media was rocked when one of its “stars”—Australian social media “influencer” Essena O’Neill—publically disavowed her stardom and the machinery of social media that produced it.  She released a confessional video on YouTube in which she testified to the inauthenticity of social media stardom, killed her existing social media accounts . . . and then started a new website called “Let’s Be Game Changers” in which she purports to offer a more “real” and authentically inspirational version of herself.  As she writes on her new web site:

“Nothing is perfect about spending every single day making your life look perfect online. That is not real. That is not inspirational. There is so much more we could be doing than editing ourselves and proving ourselves to others.”

In her book, Jose 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.  Platform tactics such as the popularity principle and ranking mechanisms  . . . are firmly rooted in a ideology of that values hierarchy, competition and a winner take all mindset” (page 21)

In your post take a position where you assess Essena O’Neill's recent actions as being either supportive  of or oppositional to what Van Dijck calls the “neoliberal economic principles” of the culture of connectivity of contemporary social media platforms. 

It may be helpful to refer to the following resources on the Internet concerning Essena O’Neill:

1) Her YouTube ‘Why I REALLY am quitting social media” confession: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1Qyks8QEM

2) This story from the Guardian (UK) “Instagram star Essena O'Neill calls out fake social media couples” http://www.theguardian.com/media/2015/nov/11/instagram-star-essena-oneill-fake-social-media-couples

3) This story from WIRED, “Hipster Barbie Quits the Internet, Leaving Us Without a Hero”, about Darby Cisneros, the creator of Instagram star #socialitybarbie http://www.wired.com/2015/11/socality-barbie-quits/

4) This story from The Globe and Mail about “The anti social media star” http://www.theglobeandmail.com/life/i-gained-almost-100000-instagram-followers-in-two-weeks-but-i-lost-myanonymity/article27212061/?ord=1

Your initial posts are due by 5 PM on Monday, December 7 and your replies to other posts by Thursday December 10 by 5 PM