This Instagram Model Just Did Something Amazing With Her Social Media

An 18-year-old Instagram model has decided to get rid of all social media as she claims that it’s not “real life.”

Essena O’Neill has deleted her Instagram account which had over 600,000 followers due to her recent acknowledgement that social media is fake. She claimed that she could make $2000 AUD per post “easy” – which roughly translates to $1420 USD per post.

O’Neill states that she has become tired of how fake social media has become and wanted to put it all to an end:

“I’ve spent the majority of my teenage life being addicted to social media, social approval, social status, and my physical appearance,”

she writes in her last Instagram post, which shows a cartoon character wearing a television set on his head with “We Are A Brain-Washed Generation” written on the screen:

“Social media, especially how I used it, isn’t real. It’s contrived images and edited clips ranked against each other. It’s a system based on social approval, likes, validation, in views, success in followers. it’s perfectly orchestrated self-absorbed judgement.”

In her final YouTube video – which has since been deleted – she underlined how ridiculous it is to measure happiness by the amount of likes and views received on social media.

The Instagram model goes on to reveal that “everything I was doing was edited and contrived” to get more likes, more views and more followers, but in the end, it didn’t leave her happy or fulfilled. She goes on to say:

“When you let yourself be defined by numbers, you let yourself be defined by something that is not real, that is not pure, and that is not love.”

She began her purge of social media by deleting over 2000 pictures from the website, leaving only 96 remaining. She then edited the captions to provide their “real” meaning.

Instagram Model
Source: instagram
Instagram Model
Source: Instagram

She has since deleted her Instagram account and started her own website letsbegamechangers.com. It’s a platform aimed at promoting conscious living, reducing celebrity culture and generating conversation on social issues. It receives no funding from advertisements, only through crowdfunding.

Her stance is incredibly admirable, not to mention mature for an 18-year-old. She more or less had the world at her feet. Earning almost $1500 per social media post, modelling contracts lined up, plus Adsense money from YouTube. She decided to throw it all away after acknowledging how toxic and misleading it all was. Could you say you would do the same in her position? I certainly couldn’t.

Featured Image via LoboStudioHamburg from Pixabay, available under a Creative Commons License.

After graduating from City University London with a degree in law, Craig is now a freelance blogger and writer. He works on his own blog that speaks on social and cultural millennial issues.