Essena O’Neill is a 19 year old Australian girl who raised herself entirely on a career of social media. Up until now, she was an Instagram model who made her money from sponsorships, advertising products she didn’t even like, and spending every day taking photographs that barely resembled her real life. She didn’t know who she was or what she stood for, and was not happy at all with her life as a “successful” online celebrity. Essena noticed these patterns in herself after almost six years of living her life online, and took it into her own hands just recently to make a change.
She posted her last YouTube video yesterday (you can view it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyI2Sugw6Yc), completely explaining her reasoning behind quitting social media for good. Essena has made an enormous realization that you might even think about in the back of your mind a little bit every day. You might wonder, “Did I really need to take 26 versions of that selfie to make sure one looked good enough to post?” Or maybe on a Friday night you’ll say to yourself, “I don’t really want to go out tonight, but if I stay in, there will be no pictures and people will think I’m a boring, friendless loser.”
Essena made a huge commitment by quitting social media, and that’s not something that’s very simple for the rest of us to replicate. As college students, our lives are centered largely around social media, and it can be really difficult to cut yourself off from it while everyone else continues on. That said, however, it’s not impossible to experience the freedom Essena is getting from going off the social grid for a more limited respite of bliss. Here are a few easy ways to temporarily remove yourself from the fakeness of a life online:
Hang out with a friend without documenting a single minute on social media. You don’t even have to turn off your phone; just put it face down on the table or into your bag. Give someone your undivided attention.
Choose your dinner based on what you actually want to eat, not by what will look prettiest on the plate.
Wash your face and go a day without makeup. No one is going to judge you for being you.
Send a message directly to a friend instead of posting it publicly on their wall. Is it really personal if everybody else is seeing it too?
Compliment someone, in person, based on something they did, not on how they look. Pay attention to what’s actually going on in the lives of the people around you, not to how everything appears on the surface.
Go to the gym for your health, not because you want to tell everyone you went.
Wear something you actually feel comfortable in. Whether feeling comfortable means looking pretty in the mirror or being able to sit criss-cross-applesauce without offending anyone is up to you, but do it for yourself rather than for the benefit of how others will perceive you.
Volunteer somewhere for a cause that actually matters to you, not for a cause that looks good on pen and paper or typed into a Word document of your resume.
Do what you do in order to impress yourself, not to impress others. Appearing as if you’ve succeeded is not the definition of success.
These suggestions are just that: suggestions. It’s okay to get some enjoyment out of social media; it’s hard not to! There’s ‘real life proof’ that someone saw what you’re doing and ‘liked’ it! But it’s important to remember that there are drawbacks to social media and its deceitful aspects. As a generation, we allow ourselves to take edited versions of our experiences as fact. You might remember your nineteenth birthday as the day you wore a cute dress and held a dozen balloons in your hand, but forget that it was the day most of your friends forgot about you and your dad had to drive two hours to take you out to brunch.
Essena logged back onto her Instagram account (https://instagram.com/essenaoneill/?hl=en) and edited her captions to represent the truth behind each photograph. On a selfie she had taken in perfect lighting while wearing caked makeup to cover her anxiety-induced acne breakout, she commented, “Happiness based on aesthetics will suffocate your potential here on earth.” It is extremely important to allow yourself to live life to your full ability, based on what matters to you, not on what looks like in the pictures. I urge you to try some of the strategies in this article and let yourself to experience life in reality rather than through your screen. Sometimes it can be pretty nice to live in the ‘real world’ instead of the one you view online through a saturated filter.
Note: The photos in this article were taken from Essena’s Instagram account, and are used here ironically to contrast her prior fake life to the real one that you can choose to live.