Essena O'Neil shocked her followers when she decided to quit social media. She's made a living for some odd years off of Instagram, blogging, Tumblr, and Youtube videos. She says she became to what others thought of her and valued her self worth in the number of likes she got online. I've mildly followed Essena on Youtube for a little bit in the summer. I remember finding myself insanely jealous of her life. She's beautiful, has a great body, is a model, she was able to quit university just to focus on her social media job, she was living what I,and many others thought was the dream life. I remember scoffing at videos she'd post where she said she needed to get her body in better shape. She already had a flat stomach that I would have killed to have. She'd say she feel alone,and I'd think nobody that stunning could ever actually feel alone. When I found out she quit social media I rolled my eyes thinking it was just a publicity stunt, or a way to make her seem more 'edgy' or something like that. I made myself read the article and my hatred for her that was really only derived from pure jealousy seemed to dissipate.She said she quit social media so people wouldn't compare their selves to her, so she wouldn't be living in a constant 'does everyone like me' state, and she put captions on her instagram photos describing how fake and staged they were. The unattainable image this girl painted for herself seemed to wash away. You always see models in magazines or on TV and think how great and beautiful they are. Perfect hair, perfect skin, flat stomach, nice legs, and you just get defeated because 'I'll never look like that', but the girls don't even look like that. Professional hair and makeup can do a lot. Not eating before a photo shoot will make any stomach look flat. She really did show from her actions that what you see online isn't always true, it all depends on how the person makes them self look.
I think her movement is very smart. She is using the same tool that she believes is making society's current standards bad to fight against it. This is a great way to cross the line from slacktivism to activism.
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