Essena O'Neill

Well-known fashion and beauty blogger/model Essena O’Neill became a hot topic when she broke down in a YouTube video where she explained how social media ruined her life. Much like Mascheroni et al., O’Neill discussed how girls needed to feel validated through likes and conform to unrealistic beauty standards. In an attempt to create a much more significant impact towards her audience, O’Neill decided to edit the majority of her captions to depict the true meaning behind each selfie/photo. From the series of selfies I have chosen for this research, O’Neill proves to be the most vocal as she now is an inactive Instagram user (with all selfie-related images deleted) and is rarely seen or heard on other forms of social media. She strongly addresses the issue of people validating themselves through the use of edited photos and likes/comments from others in the community. “They [females] identify with the [peer] pressure to always look “perfect” in their online pictures” (Mascheroni et al.). O’Neill argues that these selfies go on to promote overly sexualized photos of oneself because it is what provides acceptance from others, which thus reinforces the unfortunate social standards.  Though some believe that O’Neill’s declaration of quitting social media was a ploy for more publicity, she ultimately deleted her photos in order for her message to stay strong and clear: that we should not be susceptible to social standards that are based on conforming to what is perceived to be ‘ideal’ as it is highly glamourized and unauthentic from reality.

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Shorter Clip/ BuzzFeed Highlights: