Instagram Model Research Paper

At the end of the month of October, international Instagram model Essena O’Neill enacted her personal revolt against social media. If you don’t have Instagram, or don’t follow the ‘Instagram famous,’ you may not know who Essena is. Essena has been fairly well known since she was the equivalent of a junior in high school in Australia. Her fame began with her Tumblr blog (a platform that makes it easy for fans and anonymous followers to ask questions), and her Youtube videos, which she used to talk about her passion for veganism. Eventually, her Youtube videos began to include discussions of how to exercise, aesthetically pleasing episodes of her going out to eat at vegan restaurants, as well as episodes where she was just relaxing and talking into the camera. During these personal videos, Essena would talk about her own past issues with her body, her current ambitions to stay inspired, and the importance of making veganism popular. Meanwhile, her Instagram was growing in popularity. As followers watched her ‘beautiful life,’ her days at the beach, her morning acai bowl, her travels through India, Australia, and California- people started to become obsessed Essena’s …show more content…
She changed the captions to many of her most widely circulated photos on Instagram to explain the mechanisms that go into each photo. She released a video on her Youtube account where she cries and announces she is officially quitting traditional social media. Two days ago she deleted her Instagram, which had 612,000 followers. On her new website (which will focus on TED talks, personal reflections, and discussions of veganism, not photos of her life, clothes, and activities), she writes, “Never again will I let a number define me. IT SUFFOCATED ME… I felt the same as a young girl, I would just spend hours looking at everyone else 's perfect lives and I strived to make mine look just as good... Guess I succeeded.” (O’Neill, Welcome Boys N