Sunday 4 December 2016

Blog Post #4: Essena O'Neill on the Reality of Social Media


Personally, I feel as though Essena O’Neills actions fit the description that Van Dijick gives for the neoliberal economic principles of the culture of connectivity. I was able to make the connection of Van Dijick’s theory on competition and hierarchy to O’Neill fairly easily.
When Van Djick elaborates on the neoliberal economic prinicples of connectivity, he notices that peers and technologies, “expand through competition and gain power through strategic alliances” (21) – which is easy to relate to for a forth-year-university student who’s growing up in the digital age. It seems as though whenever I stumble across a foreign Instagram account, my first impression on whether they’re popular or not is dictated by their follower count and the amount of likes their picture’s get. When I see, a high follower count I instantly begin to assume that this particular person has a lot of friends. Because of this, it creates one big competition to see who can get the most likes – which keeps a platform like Instagram, extremely active. Before eventually ending her account, O’Neill was hiding the reality of the vast efforts she put into her Instagram posts so she could make her life look more appealing than it actually was. She called it the “perfect life” and people believed that she did indeed have the perfect life. Personally, I disagree with O’Neill when she says that social media isn’t ‘real life’ due to Van Djick’s emphasis on connectivity. The content that is being produce in a medium is not as important as how it is delivered – until it is real.
The strategic alliances are also prevalent in the article Instagram star Essena O'Neill calls out fake social media couples. This article talks about a male model whom she dated strictly for business reasons. His desire for his follower count to appreciate over time was strong enough for him to engage in a faulty relationship. This obviously was all in an act for power as well – proving Van Djick’s theory of alliances almost bullet proof.
O’Neill’s been trying to promote self-acceptance. Although Instagram allows us to see some very exotic lifestyles, we must realize that not everything we read/see permits the truth.

Works Cited:
Van Dijck, J. (2013). The culture of connectivity: A critical history of social media.Oxford: 
           Oxford University Press.

Guardian (2015) Instagram star Essena O'Neill calls out fake social media 
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2 comments:

  1. Unknown9 December 2016 at 14:22

    I think the example you used of the strategic alliances that are made through social media for business reasons is an important example what this kind of fame can entail. This demonstrates the fakeness that is present online that is being analyzed by Van Dijk. It is important to spread these messages of self-worth and self-acceptance instead of the ones that are very common in society today of being perfect, and being the most famous. These ideals are not realistic, and from what O'Neil, Van Dijk, and many more have spoken out about, is this inauthentic virtual reality that controls your daily life in ways that stop you from actually living and experiencing true happiness.

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  2. Matthew Bloom10 December 2016 at 20:38

    When i was reading through the links provided for the assignment one of the most interesting things i read was when she was explaining how a male model approached her for one of these fake relationships and to think of it as a business opportunity as it would boost their followers. I believe this idea of having a large following number is true as you explain it, the more followers or likes people have the more popular they are in todays society. This is a ridiculous thing that we all do on apps and it really shouldn't mean as much as it does to people.

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