Being Instagram famous is the dream right??
Wrong.
ICYMI: Last week, internet sensation Essena O’Neill decided that she was so OVER the social media game and chose to delete her Tumblr and Snapchat — and she ALSO edited her IG and YouTube accounts to educate her MANY fans about the manufactured side of the digital industry.
Related: Watch Ariana Shut Down These Sexist Radio DJs!
Specifically, the blonde beauty highlighted how staged her images were on the picture sharing site by changing the captions to reflect the real story behind the “candid” moments (below).
Edit: “Please like this photo, I put on makeup, curled my hair, tight dress, big uncomfortable jewellery… Took over 50 shots until I got one I thought you might like, then I edited this one selfie for ages on several apps- just so I could feel some social approval from you.” THERE IS NOTHING REAL ABOUT THIS. #celebrityconstructA photo posted by Social Media Is Not Real Life (@essenaoneill) on Feb 8, 2014 at 9:02pm PST
Edit real caption: This is what I like to call a perfectly contrived candid shot. Nothing is candid about this. While yes going for a morning jog and ocean swim before school was fun, I felt the strong desire to pose with my thighs just apart #thighgap boobs pushed up #vsdoublepaddingtop and face away because obviously my body is my most likeable asset. Like this photo for my efforts to convince you that I’m really really hot #celebrityconstructA photo posted by Social Media Is Not Real Life (@essenaoneill) on Feb 7, 2014 at 10:42pm PST
NOT REAL LIFE – took over 100 in similar poses trying to make my stomach look good. Would have hardly eaten that day. Would have yelled at my little sister to keep taking them until I was somewhat proud of this. Yep so totally #goalsA photo posted by Social Media Is Not Real Life (@essenaoneill) on May 10, 2014 at 12:59am PDT
AH-Mazing! We couldn’t be more impressed with the teenager — especially since she risked alienating the hundreds of thousands of fans she had gained by doing this.
But that doesn’t seem to concern the Australian native, as she’s officially re-named her IG account “Social Media Is Not Real Life” and deleted thousands of snaps from her page. The starlet has since launched her new website Let’s Be Game Changers — where she hopes to create content that will inspire change and be more real.
LOVES it!
Related: Khlo├â┬⌐ Kardashian SLAMS Critics After Backlash Following Interview About Lamar Odom’s Health Crisis
On her new site, she wrote:
“I can’t tell you how free I feel without social media. Never again will I let a number define me. IT SUFFOCATED ME. I know you didn’t come into this world just wanting to fit in and get by.
You are reading this now because you are a game changer, you might not know you power yet. I am just finding mine, but man├óΓé¼┬ªwhen you do├óΓé¼┬ªfar out you’ll go crazy. It’ll be brilliant. You’ll be brilliant.”
What an honest note. We wonder what fellow Instagram star Kylie Jenner thinks about all of this??
Be sure to ch-ch-check out Essena’s full explanation behind her exit from fake online life (below)!
[Image via Essena O’Neill/Instagram.]
