Essena O’Neill made a name for herself by becoming “instafamous.” With over 500k followers on Instagram, the 18-year-old from Australia received thousands of likes on her selfies and candid shots. She appeared to live the type of life many girls dream about. But according to Essena, none of it was real.
Essena made national headlines when she decided to quit social media, telling everyone her pictures did not show the world who she really was, only who she was pretending to be. Once she posted her message, most of her Instagrams were deleted; and as for the ones she kept, she changed their captions to expose the truth behind them all. Now, her Instagram features only two pictures.
Essena wants to make a difference. And as worldwide news sites captured her story, she seemed to get her message across. But it appears that not everyone truly understands it.
I saw many girls post about Essena on Twitter and Facebook. Most of these girls have over 1,000 followers on Instagram, and delete their posts if they don’t get a lot of likes. One girl even criticize Essena for measuring her confidence with her amount of followers, saying it’s sad that this is all she had in life. These girls who are posting about Essena’s story are the type of people that she is warning us about: the girls that post anything that is popular to make them feel better about themselves once they see their post got over 100 likes on Instagram. The girls that take “candid shots” in sports bras and make philosophical captions to match. The girls who learned to measure their self worth in likes, and not for who they are behind the screen of an iPhone. These girls are trying to be who Essena was back then, and not who she is now.
We live in a generation where we can measure a celebrity’s fan base based on how many followers they have, and where the Kendalls and Kylies feel as if they connect with these fans by posting a selfie. If you look at their comments, however, you’ll see hundreds of “LIKE BACK” of “follow for follow.” Fans comment and like these pictures for their own personal gain.
We can’t blame the Jenner sisters entirely for our obsession with social media, however. We’ve taught ourselves that we’re worth the amount of likes we get. Essena doesn’t anymore. The girls who post about her though, still do.
There’s a major difference between Essena and the girls posting about her: Essena is trying to inspire others. The girls posting about her are trying to inspire others to follow them.