Blog Post #4: Instafamous?

Essena O’Neil is a representation of what social media can truly do to you once you become too dependent on it. O’Neil is a teenage Australian Instagram star with over a million followers yet she quit social media. O’Neil had what appeared to be the ideal life with model contracts, advertisements, fame and money however she was extremely unhappy with her life and herself. She always wanted more followers, likes, comments, shares, etc.; she was never satisfied. O’Neil also realized that everything she had as well as the relationships she built were all fake with nothing being genuine.

   

Essena O’Neil's social media life show characteristics of what Van Dijk explains as the “connectivity [that] derives from a continuous pressure – both from peers and technologies…”. This is especially evident in O’Neil’s life given that she fell victim to the continuous pressure imposed upon her by the public and the companies she works for. Social media ended up raising her up but ultimately brought her down which is why she disconnected from social media in order to establish a real connection with herself and the real world.

With that being said, Essena O’Neil's recent actions are a characteristic of the “neoliberal economic principles” of the culture of connectivity of contemporary social media platforms. At the peak of her career O’Neil was only living in order to please everyone else but herself. In order to be fully satisfied she needed gratification from everyone else. Her pictures were catered to what companies want to see, her posts also reflected what her followers and ‘friends’ wanted to see as well; nothing was ever enough. As a result she went against the standard and challenged it. She exposed what happened behind closed doors; having a fake boyfriend for the fans, and even having advertising companies telling her exactly what to do to have the 'right' page. As a whole she was controlled by a higher power; societal expectations. 

Blog Post #4: Essena O’Neill

Before last year I had never heard of who Essena O’Neill was. I might have seen a glamours picture of her in a pretty dress or on the beach on my main Instagram feed (at the time this feed was the feed that displayed popular and highly liked photos...versus how it is set up now) but I never knew who she was or followed her 'Instagram Famous' account.

The first time I had really noticed Essena O’Neill was when she released her video confessional about social media. Her face kept popping up all over my Facebook newsfeed as her video was going viral across the Internet.

Just by one confessional video Essena transitioned her followers from wanting to be her and look just like her to actually feeling inspired by her. When I first saw pictures of her photos with the edited captions last year, I was very surprised at was I was reading. Although I didn't really know of her before, I wondered how this girl could possibly be saying such low thoughts about herself by calling her pictures fake etc.

Then as I kept reading through articles and watched her confessional video I realized what she was exactly trying to do and thought that finally someone with a large social media following is calling out the fakeness of social media and how we try to make our lives look 'picture perfect'.

Jose Van Dijk says "Connectivity derives from a continuous pressure—both from peers and technologies--to expand through competition and gain power through strategic alliances" (21), this matches up with exactly what Essena has expressed about social media. That we feel the pressure through peers (friends and followers etc.) and social media itself, to make everything look great for the validation of social acceptance and attention, as well as simply gaining more followers and likes.

What Van Dijk explains as 'culture of connectivity' is exactly what Essena used to do through her personal social media accounts. It is very unhealthy, yet sadly it is a huge role in society nowadays with human connection being surrounded and developed by social media. There are not only physical screens between us all but also invisible walls that we all hide behind….only showing what we want people to see/think of us for the sake of vanity and power. 

I think it is great how Essena stepped up and exposed herself like that. It caught the attention of many people that hopefully impacted them all in a great way to change how we use social media and not focusing on fake portrayals of ourselves. Personally I have even fallen for the perfect social media trap where I have posed multiple times for 'the perfect photo'. I hope that everyone learns how consuming and unhealthy social media can really be. 

Essena O'Neill - Blog Post #4

Essena O’Neill, the 19-year-old former Instagram famous model, started to gained popularity at the age of 16 when she devoted countless hours to social media. Her lifestyle represented on Instagram appeared to be what most would call the ideal life. To travel, meet equally as beautiful people, and to be praised constantly for her looks, all while being paid appeared to be a successful and comfortable lifestyle. Although this life of luxury was what she had strived for since the age of 12, she soon realized that it was a life she did not want. She admitted that all of her photos were edited and that she would spend hours each day trying to capture the right shot so that she could post it on social media. Sometimes, she would meet with other Instagram famous people just so she could take pictures with them and get more followers and more likes. These relationships were not real and she soon began to realize that the life she aspired to was just a ‘fake reality’.

In her last YouTube appearance, Essena creates a 20-minute video regarding her stance to quit social media all together. She began by telling the viewers that a career built around social media is not sustainable. “How do I make money in the future?” she started to contemplate. Essena said she had it all and was signed with one of the biggest modelling agencies in Australia allowing her to have immense power, fame and wealth. She was even dating a guy that she felt was hotter than her and was ‘more successful’, yet he was more depressed and unsure of his life than her. She goes on to say that everything she was doing was edited and contrived to get more viewership and the bases of what she was doing wasn’t natural but had an intentional purpose. Her agents would tell her what to say, when to post and how she needed to edit her photos.

The overall theme she reiterates is being “defined by numbers”. She became depressed and the only way she would feel better about herself is through the likes, followers and up praise she would get by peers. Essena started to realize that this was not the purpose of life and that she had spent countless days on absolutely nothing. Being a model stopped her from being the person she wanted to be at the age of 12. She wanted to create art, was into writing and poetry, as well as reading. These hobbies did not exist after the age of 12, as her life became consumed by the screen. Therefore, she removed herself from all social media platforms in order to reconnect with the ‘real world’.

In regards to Van Dijck, Essena O’neils recent actions is definitely a characteristic of the “neoliberal economic principles” of culture of connectivity in contemporary. As Van Dijck states, “sociality us not simply ‘rendered technological’ by moving to an online space; rather, coded structures are profoundly altering the nature of our connections, creations and interactions” (Dijck, 20). Essena’s nature of connections became altered as she heavily focused on social media and screens in order to increase her online popularity and followers. Her ‘creations’, being her photos, were fake and a false representation of her body, mental state and lifestyle. This online space allowed for her everyday interactions to be molded and focused on intangible aspects that was brought onto her by social media. As Essena stated in her YouTube clip, “You do not have to go on social media to connect. You don’t have to prove your life on Instagram to prove it’s a good life. You don’t have prove your body for you to feel beautiful”. Through this realization she has cut out this neoliberalism approach to connectivity altogether and is experiencing life like she should of from the age of 12-years-old.

Blog Post 3: Let's go Viral (Pepe vs. Luther)

As we are all fully aware the internet is a place that can interconnect friends, information, markets, and anything as minuscule as a frog meme about his current mood to world issues regarding politics. Our texts from this weeks reading looked to incorporate both the 95 Theses and the virality of the character Pepe the Frog and his connection between 2016 Republican Elect Donalad Trump. Where do these interact and connect to each other? Well media ecology is an assemblage of media forms and communicative practices which creates a specific media environment. "These media assemblages and ecologies are constituted by several distinctive sets of articulations.” This post will look to speak on how a media’s mode of communication can create symbolic meaning and modes of affect as there are emotions and embodiments enclosed within each message.

In hindsight what Martin Luther had done by sticking his 95 theses was one of the first ways a message actually went “viral”. He can be considered a media pioneer and one of the first traditional social media influences. As he was the first to actually exploit the theory of print media ecology. Standage states " spread with astonishing speed throughout the German-speaking lands as the list was copied and republished by printers in different towns", thus similar to social media his message was seen regardless of proximity and his audience ranged from anyone who had access to it.

On one end Luther’s message looked to explain how printed text became the tool to create conversation within the public space. As his message spread like wildfire because of print, the medium (print) became more important in everyday life. Thus in turn what he did created an environment that stated the power of literacy changing the power of that a pamphlet actually had and ultimately creating a sense of community. His free speech allowed for a bond and relationship to be built through social concerns and its virality spread like a popular tweet on Twitter. Thus what once may have been considered a sheet of “paper” ultimately was synonymous with social status.

Contrastingly Pepe the Frog can be considered a rhetoric which meaning changes based on the circumstance it is used in. In relation to Donald’ Trumps election campaign it has become an image that looks to have multiple facets. Although it can not be read like Luther’s Theses it communicates a meaning based on body language and Facial expression that has the ability like Luther’s Theses to go viral as it either looks to further explore a topic or argue against it. The Theses was a whistle that looked to point out the flaws in a system while Pepe “serves as a social media dog whistle for Trump followers to echo their implicit support of ultraconservative beliefs in public forums without risking the invitation of backlash.” (Williams 2016)

Williams, Alex. "How Pepe the Frog and Nasty Woman Are Shaping the Election." The New York Times. The New York Times, 28 Oct. 2016. Web. 07 Dec. 2016.