An Australian teenager with more than 612,000 Instagram followers has dramatically quit the platform, describing it as 'contrived perfection made to get attention'. Essena O'Neill, 18, deleted over 2,000 pictures on 27 October and edited the captions of the remaining 96 posts to reveal the manipulation behind them.
O'Neill said she earned up to $2,000 Australian dollars per post from marketing products. In a vlog titled 'HOW PEOPLE MAKE 1000's ON SOCIAL MEDIA', she explained that social media consumed her and she was not living in a '3D world'. She has launched a new website, letsbegamechangers.com, which she says has 'no likes or views or followers'.
The site will cover veganism, creative imagery, and the financial reality behind Instagram. O'Neill also edited old captions to reflect her current views, including describing a photo of eggs and bacon as 'Chicken periods scrambled up with pig flesh'. She wrote of her time volunteering in Laos: 'I wish I would have been more conscious to see how white privileged I was.'
O'Neill's rejection of social media celebrity has been widely discussed online. Fellow vegan Instagram star Bonny Rebecca said her own experiences with social media have been 'very positive', and she felt unfairly compared to O'Neill.
