Essena O'Neill

Essena O'Neill, a teenager from Australia, decided in 2015 that she wanted to quit all of her social media platforms in order to create a statement.  This statement being that "social media is not real".  O'Neill attempted to show her hundreds of thousands of followers on social media that the pictures that she posted on her Instagram were "fake".  They were fake in the way that they did not portray O'Neill's real life, because she would diet and become obsessed with how she appeared within her photos on social media, while getting paid to promote products within her photos from companies that she did not always believe in supporting.  Social media caused her to get caught up in the fame that having thousands of followers brought about.  She was obsessed with how she looked, from her hair to her makeup to her body.  And she came to the realization that all of these aspects of social media made her miserable, therefore, she came to the decision that she wanted to quit social media in order to prove to others that what you see on social media is not always what it seems.  She did this by re-captioning all her photos on her Instagram account in order to reflect the reality of the photo.  She also made a video on YouTube explaining why she had decided to quit social media and the effects that the falseness of social media has had on her life.
Van Dijck states that, "connectivity derives from a continuous pressure--both from peer and technologies--to expand through competition and gain power through strategic alliances" (21).  This "continuous pressure" is what O'Neill is attempting to discuss within her exit from social media platforms.  I believe that O'Neill's actions do not show characteristics of neoliberal economic principles.  This is because O'Neill has decided to move away from all social media platforms in an attempt to become a happier individual who is not consistently pressured from social media technologies.  In present day, O'Neill no longer uses any form of social media in order to be her true self and to not experience the pressures and influences that are apparent within social media.