Essena O'Neill (born 3 November 1996) is a former

internet celebrity An Internet celebrity (also known as a social media influencer, social media personality, internet personality, or simply influencer) is a celebrity who has acquired or developed their fame and notability through the Internet. The rise of social ...

from Coolum, Australia, who made national and international headlines when quitting

social media Social media are interactive media technologies that facilitate the creation and sharing of information, ideas, interests, and other forms of expression through virtual communities and networks. While challenges to the definition of ''social medi ...

in 2015.

Social media

In late October 2015, then eighteen-year-old model and vegan advocate Essena O'Neill deleted over 2,000 photos on her

Instagram Instagram is a photo and video sharing social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. The app allows users to upload media that can be edited with filters and organized by hashtags and geographical tagging. Posts can ...

that had over 600,000 followers. She renamed the account "Social Media Is Not Real Life" and rewrote captions for old posts. She also decided to quit all other social media accounts, including

Tumblr Tumblr (stylized as tumblr; pronounced "tumbler") is an American microblogging and social networking website founded by David Karp in 2007 and currently owned by Automattic. The service allows users to post multimedia and other content to a sho ...

and

Snapchat Snapchat is an American multimedia instant messaging app and service developed by Snap Inc., originally Snapchat Inc. One of the principal features of Snapchat is that pictures and messages are usually only available for a short time before the ...

. After going viral, O'Neill gained more followers on Instagram, peaking at around 1 million followers before deleting it. In her book, ''American Girls: Social Media and the Secret Lives of Teenagers'',

Nancy Jo Sales Nancy Jo Sales (born October 15, 1964) is a ''New York Times'' bestselling author and journalist at ''Vanity Fair (magazine), Vanity Fair'', ''New York (magazine), New York'' magazine, and ''Harper's Bazaar'', among others. In 2011 she wrote an a ...

writes, "O'Neill did a powerful thing: she'd said what many people were already thinking, or had thought at some point as they posted another selfie or edited picture that made their life seem more perfect and glamorous than it actually was." O'Neill said that when she quit social media she had several projects planned, after having performed sponsored posts and received payments from YouTube.

Response

In the first few days following her announcement, O'Neill's decision was shared widely on the internet. O'Neill received praise while also being criticised for eliciting "confusion" amongst her following. After her announcement, she decided to launch a website called "Let's Be Game Changers", meant to "inform people". In the site, she posted videos questioning social media and encouraging followers to think about the way they use social media. The site also featured a section called "behind the image", which served to shed light on the details and preparation behind her previous images posted to her Instagram account. Among those who criticized her were fellow Instagram users Nina and Randa Nelson. The twins produced a video titled "Essena O'Neill Quitting Social Media Is a Hoax", which questioned her claims. The twins said Let's Be Game Changers was in fact "100-percent self promotion". In a forum post on her site, she stated that she would not engage with the accusations. O'Neill started using

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as the only platform to communicate publicly. O'Neill took down Let's Be Game Changers in December 2015 because being online "felt toxic", followed by an email newsletter sent to her followers. Around this same time, Let's Be Game Changers redirected to a blank site with her name on it. She then announced that she would be writing a

satirical Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of shaming or e ...

book called ''How to Be Social Media Famous''.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oneill, Essena 1997 births Australian female models Australian Internet celebrities Living people