For about three years, I have followed Essena O’Neill on Instagram, Tumblr and YouTube. She was an eighteen-year-old Australian teenager who often traveled to different places like Thailand and Los Angeles, and was signed with a popular modeling agency. She had half a million followers on Instagram and hundreds of people commented on her photos to tell her that she was gorgeous. I always assumed that she was content with her life, since she was always smiling and laughing in the photos that she posted.
But recently, Essena revealed that she wasn’t happy at all. In fact, every time she posted a photo in a beautiful outfit or workout clothes, she felt very empty and detached from the real world. It turns out that she was being paid hundreds or sometimes thousands of dollars for every post wearing or featuring a company’s product. Essena started living only for the number of likes that she was getting, and she felt that no number of followers was enough to make her happy. “[Social media is] a system based on social approval, likes and dislikes, validation in views, success in followers… it’s perfectly orchestrated judgement. And it consumed me,” Essena says on her website.
Eventually, Essena felt that the constant pressure of being a Instagram and Tumblr “celebrity” was too much, so she quit both of those platforms. For good. However, before she completely deleted her accounts, she removed almost two thousand photos from her Instagram and only left up ones with educational captions (Essena is a supporter of a vegan lifestyle), or extremely old photographs of herself. She would change the captions of these older photos to tell what she was thinking at the time, what she wish she knew then, or just to reiterate the sentiment that “social media is not real life”.
Although Essena has since deleted her Instagram, Tumblr and Youtube accounts to focus on her own website, where she focuses on spreading the vegan lifestyle and being creative and present in our lives, she has made quite a splash in the online media. News outlets all over the world covered her decision to leave her successful social platforms. This only gave Essena more followers and views, which begs the question, why are we talking about the dark side of social media over social media, and not making actual changes in our online presence instead?
Personally, I know that sometimes I feel consumed by social media. Whenever I have downtime, I check my Instagram and Twitter accounts, searching for something new to look at. I follow models and actresses, and I think about how I wish I could “live a perfect life” like them. Although I am grateful to Essena for spreading the message that social media only shows the highlights of someone’s life, I don’t think that completely quitting social media is the right solution. I enjoy seeing what friends and family in other places are up to, and it’s fun to share photos and ideas online with people you care about. So although Essena chose the right decision for her, but I think I’ll keep my accounts, and I’ll try to step away from my phone and laptop sometimes. Spending time with a real person is better than spending it with their online profiles, anyway.