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| Image copyright Instagram: Essenaoneill |
Today (actually yesterday, when I drafted this post) I read an article about Essena O'Neill, an Instagram famous girl who abandoned her successful and professional pretty social media accounts to reveal the truth behind the pictures, and to encourage people to make real changes in the world. The story has gone viral, and if you Google her name 10s of articles will come up, but I originally read the one on the Guardian online, here. In her edited captions of many photos O'Neill tries to draw attention to the truths that are hidden in the daily obsession of looking at other people's lives in pictures, writing that she "took countless pictures trying to look hot for Instagram," and admitted that she calorie counted and exercised obsessively as a 15 year old in her efforts to be famous on social media. On her re-edited captions of her Instagram photos (now completely deleted), she explains the effort it takes to get the perfect shot, how it can impact your self esteem as you wait for the validation of people liking it, and how you would judge yourself more as you take the picture, as you're trying to judge it from how other people see you.
I have a grand total of 200 Instagram followers, but I'm still guilty of this. When I get the magic 11 (when your likes turn into a number) I am happy. For a millisecond. And I can understand - after having read these articles especially and listened to her video - that this must get so much worse the more followers you have. When you're aiming for a bigger and bigger number you have more to lose, or more to gain. There is always a bigger number, and it can so easily consume you if you keep aiming for it.We think we're aiming for perfection, but massive corporations, and brands, and the celebrities they get to endorse them, keep moving that further away. Tempting us, saying that if we buy that one more thing, if we lose that one more pound, if we eat that one type of superfood, we'll reach it. But there will always be something more.
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| Image copyright Instagram: Essenaoneill |
Those perfectly posed photos in glittering sunlight, the supermodel glancing candidly out on an ocean to create a sense of alluring mystery, the artfully arranged collection of high end makeups, just 'casually' flung on a marble counter-top. It's all manufactured using apps, filters, Photoshop, and even if it is real, many of those people posting the pictures have spent more time trying to get that idealistic image than actually enjoying the moment they are claiming to be "blessed" by. And yet we will sit at home wishing our own lives away, wishing to be the one in that 2-D world. That is a phrase I truly respect from Essena O'Neill's stance, the fact that we live in a 2-D world online, and we need to remember to appreciate the 3-D things. Friends, family, love, rain, mud, exhilaration, the jump of your heart if you see someone you like, the butterflies in your stomach, the warm feeling when someone compliments your work, getting home after a long day, drinking hot chocolate, having a cup of tea. So often we take these 3-D feelings and turn them into 2-D pictures and we forget to just enjoy them, because we have to make sure everyone else knows exactly what we're doing, so they can, in turn, measure themselves again us.
Much (not all) of social media now encourages you to measure everything - measure how people look compared to you, what their lives are compared to you, what they eat, drink, how far they can run, what they can wear, all in comparison to you, there is a constant need to measure yourself against everyone. I do it too, and I know I will find it hard to stop, despite agreeing with a lot of what Essena O'Neill has been saying. I follow countless numbers of celebrities and bloggers on Instagram, on Twitter, I watch their YouTube videos and sometimes feel a sense of emptiness inside that their lives are better than mine, that they are happier and more fulfilled than me. I daily fall into the trap that I would probably warn other people against. Another thing social media encourages I think, hypocrisy. If one of my friends told me she wished she looked like a model, or a picture online, I would tell her she was silly, that she was beautiful just the way she was, and I would believe it. But I would never apply it to myself. I would never turn those words back around.
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This is a world obsessed with authenticity, but sadly enough, it has become a facade in itself, in my opinion. When successful bloggers/vloggers like Zoella, Tanya Burr, Alfie Deyes etc. started becoming as popular as they are now, they often stated in interviews that people liked them because they were 'authentic.' They started off just like us, in front of a little camera in their bedrooms, and the hordes of people watching them feel justified and good in their support of them, as they're just normal people. But even that idea of authenticity is not real, it's just a new level of the celebrity. Even if these people started off just like us, they're certainly not anymore. This article in Now magazine shows much Zoella can make per view of her video, and then factors in the product placement, her own products, and her blog as well. I'm not knocking the work that they do (I actually do watch Zoella videos) as obviously to get this far they've all had to work pretty damn hard, I'm just knocking the aura of this mystical 'authenticity.'
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A main point might be the controversy around Zoella's book release last year of Girl Online, which broke records in how many in sold in the first day of publication, and then was the subject of lots of hype surrounding the fact that Zoe used a ghostwriter. I, personally, was surprised at the backlash, I had kind of assumed anyway that she used a ghostwriter (many famous people who publish books do) but after reading blogs and articles about it, it was more about the fact that Zoe had never admitted to using one, she had implied to her viewers that she had written it herself, and it was the betrayal many people felt that caused the most hurt. Zoella was meant to be the trustworthy big sister you can watch on your computer, she wasn't meant to be lying to you and taking credit for someone else's work. It was the threat to her authentic image that worried people.
Essena O'Neill in her declaration of 'Social Media is Not Real Life' has announced something we all pretty much knew already. The publicity of it is impressive, but I don't know how much it will change. Ironically, after her announcement of quitting social media, she actually gained followers, which, coupled with her plea for financial help, has now caused some people to doubt the authenticity of her fight to be seen as authentic. In the sad truth I am going to finish with - can we ever really find authenticity in a world which provides validation by a double tap on a picture, or the click of a thumbs up? A world where you might type "LOL' or "LMAO" but what you actually meant was, "I may have slightly smiled at my phone just now?"
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Even for me personally, I'm going to publish this blog post, and then I'll probably scroll Instagram and think to myself wistfully "I wish I Kylie Jenner's body," or "I wish I had those shoes that blogger is wearing," In my mind I will know that I am playing into the very heart of the diseased world social media is creating, but I will do it anyway.
(PS, I don't think social media is all bad - I think it is a useful tool and can be used for wonderful things, like anti-bullying campaigns, or helping refugees, this is just one side of one discussion)
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