With pricey clothes and beautiful girls, Instagram models have fame, followers, and fortune — yet perhaps it is not as rewarding of a profession as it seems. Some may ask if it actually even qualifies as a job, but it’s difficult to call it much else when there are so many who make a living off of social self-promotion. Through sponsorships, modeling opportunities, and much more, models on Instagram and other social media sites are making money through their popularity, but is there a “dark side” to this platform that has previously been ignored?

The answer is no, it has not been ignored. This is evident through a bold move by an Instagram model who has been in the news these last few weeks, Essena O’Neill. Fed up with the fake lifestyle that she believes social media promotes, O’Neill quit all things related to social media to “live a more authentic life.” She explains, “Drama and gossip were my drugs and social approval was my life’s motivator. I was obsessed with pictures and the lives I saw on screens. I ended up making a career out of it, and somehow ended up spending the vast majority of my days complaining, judging, comparing, whining, and perfecting an online persona. How fun.” In essence, she realized she disliked how social media supposedly influenced her and she decided to stop it.

As a result, she took down all of her social media accounts, except for her Instagram and Vimeo. These two were used for the main purpose of explaining her new found goals. On Vimeo, she created a series of videos to explain why she quit social media and the negative side of it that many fail to see. Through her Instagram, she made a point to delete many photos, but then keep some where she changed the captions so they would express the reality of the situations that were originally captured. Changing the photo captions to “real caption edits” were her first steps in denouncing social media and explaining the falseness that she thinks it creates.

After a few days, not to contradict her message, she did finally take down her Instagram account. At the same time, however, she created a website called www.letsbegamechangers.com  where she has taken on a different purpose — To promote actual living, to further her explanations and goals, and to leave an impact by talking about how to be game changers, or in other words, how to be our true selves. She also shares things from others that she thinks are worthwhile, like the following quote from Cameron Diaz, “Fulfillment comes from within you, by being authentic to yourself.” Now her main focus, this website has a valid goal, but are all of Essena O’Neill’s opinions about social media sound?

There have been many response videos to her original video claiming social media as solely negative, including some by her former friends and fellow social media stars, Nina and Randa Nelson. These two are twins who do videos together, and who O’Neill spent some time with briefly in Los Angeles before giving up social media. They explain that they believe her new “direction” is actually a hoax, more self-promotion just disguised in the guise of authentic purpose. They say that when she visited them, she was not completely covered financially- she needed a place to stay, spent all her days with the girls, and minimized spending. In her videos, however, she talks about how being at the pinnacle of her success could not have made her less happy. This is a direct contrast to the perception of the two sisters, who thought at the time that she was definitely not at the pinnacle of her success, but was still sincerely enjoying herself and was still utilizing social media as a positive tool.

Furthering their explanation, they state that her complete change in opinion occurred right after a bad breakup with a mutual friend. Motivated by the negativity from this relationship, they think that many of her ideas regarding social media as something negative where influenced by the aftermath of the relationship. Additionally, they think it ironic that she is still using social media to promote herself in a sense, through her new website. This is true, to some extent. She still has an online presence, her “quitting of social media” flooded the news, allowing her to gain more publicity than ever before, and she is still using this form of social media to present a message and a new image of herself.

This doesn’t have to be a bad thing however. The varying opinions about social media will remain, but it is possible to agree that how social media is used is up to the user. Social media can have many more purposes than those that are originally thought.  Though it may lead some to live a life that is less than real, for others, it is a way to artistically express themselves authentically. It can dissolve connection between people, but it can also provide one by serving as a forum for an ever-fluctuating exchange of cultural ideas and opinions. It is undeniable that social media means different things to different people, but the question that will remain is if it is something that is positive, negative, or perhaps somewhere in-between.

Citations:

“‘It’s a Hoax’: Friends Call Essena a ‘fake'” News.com.ua. NewsComAu, 04 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.

Rodulfo, Kristina. “What Actually Goes Into the Perfect Bikini Selfie?” ELLE.com. Hearst Communications, 02 Nov. 2015. Web. 17 Nov. 2015.