Stepping Away From Social Media

Last year social media star and influencer Essena O’Neil took the world by surprise when she announced her plans to quit social media, and furthermore spoke of the realities of being a social media star and the negative effects that being Instagram famous had on her life. I remember watching her confessional video when it first came out and thinking to myself simply wow – I never would have imagined her life was not as perfect as she portrayed that it was. I then remember thinking how awful it was for her to feel that way and participate in the online popularity contest when it had such a negative impact on her self-esteem. Essena summarized her feelings when she told Time Magazine:

            “I was lost, with serious problems so beautifully hidden … If anything my social media addiction, perfectionist personality and low self esteem made my career,” she said. “Over-sexualisation, perfect food photos, perfect travel vlogs – it is textbook how I got famous. Sex sells, people listen to pretty blondes, I just happened to talk about veganism a trending thing on YouTube.” (2016)

This quote exemplifies what Van Dijck calls “neoliberal economic principles” and relates directly to the “culture of connectivity” which, as defined by 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 felt pressure, from both the app and her followers, to perform and be who they wanted her to be, not necessarily who she wanted to be. People on Instagram are essentially in competition with other users, and themselves, to have the most likes on their photos. This competition ends in a hierarchy of users who are then seen as influencers, role models and the ‘ideal’ figure. The pressure from the app to maintain her profile was certainly twofold: For her, the app paid her which meant she had money in her pocket, but also Instagram gained attention through her promotion of the app leading to more users. Further, Van Dijck discusses the act of strategic alliances which Essena brought up in an interview with The Guardian. Essena speaks about an experience she had with a famous male model who wanted to pursue a fake online relationship, which he referred to as simply a “business deal”, with her in order to enhance their online popularity (The Guardian, 2015).

To be seen as Instagram famous there seems to be a formula such as:

more likes = more contracts = more money = lower (and/or higher) self-esteem

which is quite the opposite of what one would think it would be to be Instagram famous. I think Essena’s story is important to younger generations who do believe that the more likes you get is equivalent to your popularity status, as we saw with Katherine Pommerening.

Works Cited:
Dijck, Jose Van. The Culture of Connectivity: A Critical History of Social Media. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2013. Print.

McCluskey, M. (2016). Instagram star Essena O'Neil breaks her silence on quitting social media. Time Magazine.

Parkinson, H. (2015). Instagram star Essena O'Neil calls out fake social media couples. The Guardian.