We all know those few people who have envious social media pages. They seem to live an amazing life, posting fantastic and flawless photos of their desirous lifestyle and garnering hundreds or thousands of followers and likes respectively. Even fewer have such big accounts that they are paid by fashion companies to post images of themselves in these companies' designer clothes and apparel. It almost seems like the perfect life.
Recently, Instagram star Essena O’Neill abruptly "quit" social media in an emotional YouTube video, detailing the internal struggles she felt under the pressure to maintain her Instagram account. With more than 700,000 Instagram followers, she announced her decision to quit social media on her YouTube channel, claiming that her social media accounts were making her miserable and her obsession became unhealthy. As she explained, "when you let yourself be defined by numbers, you let yourself be defined by something that is not pure, that is not real, and that is not love." She deleted thousands of pictures on her Instagram account, and re-captioned certain photos to detail what she says really went on in the photo. In one photo where she is featured wearing a white gown, she changed the caption to say, "NOT REAL LIFE -- I didn't pay for the dress, took countless photos trying to look hot for Instagram." In another photo of her in a swim suit, she re-wrote the caption to say, "NOT REAL LIFE -- took over 100 in similar poses trying to make my stomach look good."
Her video attracted much praise and support from fellow followers and celebrities alike, who praise her courage for stepping away from the cause of her distress. And it should. She identified the root of her unhappiness and made a change for the better.
But what does this story say? O'Neill essentially explained that social media is a lie. That is not true. Social media is social media, and nothing more. Unfortunately, people make social media more than it is by putting exaggerated value upon it. They enable themselves to put personal significance into a virtual reality. Allowing oneself to become pressured into a false life that one is not comfortable in is the result of one's own actions and design. In the case of O'Neill, disowning personal responsibility for her personal unhappiness and rather shifting the blame on social media itself is foolish. It is the person using social media that is ultimately responsible for how much one wants his or her life valued by a meaningless number on a social media page. O'Neill took a positive step in her life by closing off her social media. Hopefully many more will realize that it is up to themselves to make a similar change, knowing that personal gratification comes from a personal choice.
