Breaking Away From the Social Norms
Last year the 19-year-old social
media influencer and iconic Instagram star, Essena O’Neil deleted her account due to the negative impact the
stardom had on her life. In O’Neil’s confession video she reveals the social
values and struggles she faced while being an Instagram famous model.
Essena dealed with stress, anixety and depression from the amount of pressure that the social structure of the app put on her
day-to-day life. The pressure to be who everyone wanted her to be, look like
and act, however this was not necessarily who Essena wanted to be herself.
O’Neil states, “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.” The anxiety she felt from all the pressure of the app,
motivated her to delete her account and speak out about the attributes that
social media platforms have on your everyday life.
Jose Van Dijck would explain
O’Neils irrupting decision of abandoning social media platforms as an example
of Dijck concept “neoliberal economic principals”, relating directly to the
“culture of connectivity”.
Van Dijck states “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 an ideology that values,
hierarchy, competition and a winner take all mind set” (Van Dijck, 2016, p.
21).
Essena
O’Neil links closes with Van Dijks idea of neoliberal economics due to her
strategy of popularity through alliances with brands. O’Neil was obsessed with
her personal image and the amount of likes she could get on a image posted.
O’Neil made money from the app, so the more likes she got the more money she
earned. Therefore, in order to get the most likes she teamed up with brand name
labels to hit popularity from different angles, reaching large amounts of
people. O’Neil’s strategy to team up the different brand name labels reflect
Van Dijk’s idea of strategy alliances.
I believe Essena O’Neil’s
break away from social media was brave and desiring act that the younger
generation should be influenced by. Popularity and status should not be about
the amount of like one gets, when individuals believe in this stress and anxiety
apparent.
Hi Shianne,
ReplyDeleteI really enjoyed reading your post and think you did a great job relating Essena's story to Van Dijck's theory. I agree with you when you state that Essena O'Neil's break away from social media was brave and I also hope the younger generations will look at this and realize some of the same things she had. You make a very good point when you say that Essena was moulding herself into what everyone else wanted her to be, this really added to your argument about her admitting to the pressures of social media. Really great job!
Sara
Hi Shianne,
ReplyDeleteExcellent post, you did a great job at arguing your point through good examples and an even better insight. I agree that her leaving social media was brave in so many ways as it was even her source of income. I do hope younger generations see this video and hear her out because her message is important to the mental health of the future generations who are already immersed in the "perfection" of social media stars.
I especially liked your discussion about popularity and how she used other brands and her image to make herself more popular in order to make more money. Popularity is an unfortunate given on social media as it is so easy to compare likes, comments and followers to other people. It's interesting to think that popularity is essentially a business model now.
Kloe