You have probably heard the name Essena O'Neill. If you haven't, here is why she has become well known.
O'Neill wrote on her website "If you saw the news (or are an avid follower) you would know I made one big change calling out all the BS in my life, i.e. quitting social media, as I just got so over the culture and industry I was in."
O'Neill explains that everything she did on social media was fake and staged. She would put on a nice dress that a company sent her as a plug, take a staged picture in it, and then take it off and go home. To her followers, it seemed that she was living the perfect life in fancy clothes, partying all night long.
O'Neill described her unhappiness saying, "And yeah, I was smiling in pictures. I have this superpower where I can smile for a camera and act happy around other people whilst completely hide my inner misery." However, since quitting social media, two of O'Neill's friends have called her out as a hoax.
Nina and Randa Nelson, twins who run a YouTube channel, made a video (shown below) calling out O'Neill's motives.
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The sisters tell the story to their viewers of when O'Neill came to stay with them in Los Angeles. O'Neill said that while she was in Los Angeles, "I was surrounded by all this wealth and all this fame and all this power, yet they were all miserable and I had never been more miserable." The sisters say that nothing about O'Neill's visit was fake. The sisters say that O'Neill had a motive to quit social media.
O'Neill, according to the Nelson twins, quit social media to promote her new website. "Essena, this was mean what you did," the sisters say in the video comments. "U didn’t just 'quit' social media. You attacked other people by saying that they’re fake and deceiving others. No YOU were fake and deceiving other people. It’s not fair to say other people are doing that and to use your trip to LA as evidence. You owe some apologies."
Other people are agreeing with the Nelson sisters. Zack James, a former YouTube star wrote on his Facebook page what he thought about O'Neill. James wrote:
"Essena O’Neill is wrong; social media isn't a lie."
Social media can be whatever the user desires it to be. Allowing yourself to become pressured into a false life that you're uncomfortable with is the result of your own actions and intent. The inability to define yourself, your life, your own sense of confidence comes from a lack of trying to understand yourself.
Blaming social media and calling it a lie further shows your lack of attempt to understand yourself. Yes, deleting your social media is a step in the right direction. Disowning personal responsibility for your own happiness and shifting the blame is a step backwards.
I, and many others, have found a greater understanding of ourselves through our social media careers. The ability to explore unlimited opportunities, to create what our hearts desire, to speak with our own true voices. We found ourselves through social media because we made that choice to do so.
You decide to take money for a dress? That's your choice. You decide to spend hours taking the right photo? That's your choice. You decide to live a life that you feel is a lie? That is absolutely your choice.
Deciding to use social media as a tool to tell people that social media is a lie contradicts that very same notion. Social media is there to be used for the truth or for the lies. Essena O'Neil needs to find real help instead of redirecting personal responsibility towards mankind's greatest communication tool. I truly hope you do, because social media isn't a lie: you were the lie."
So what do you think? Did social media ruin O'Neill's life or did she have a choice on how she used social media? Did she quit to improve her life or did she quit to market her website?
