Recently enough, a new category of notoriety appeared, which is what I call the "web fame". A lot of young people "talking" to other young people through different type of social media (instagram, youtube, twitter...), and who become massive stars. At first, this new wave was showing people who did something (they made funny videos or tutorials...), but quickly it turned to be videos or pictures of people who just show their lives. Actually, there is a lot of videos on youtube called, for examples "What I Eat Today", "My Outfit Of The Day", ect... But what is an extreme case (and very popular) is the "vlog" which basically is watching a person doing her life with no real purpose.
ESSENA O'NEILL "REVOLUTION"
Essena O'Neill is an australian 18 years old girl, who is known because of her youtube channel and instagram account, where she had 700 000 followers and subscribers. Unfortunately, the message she was sending to them shifts from veganism and environment's protection to appearances and commercial products. The photos she posted weren't about animals anymore, but about her, Essena in bikini/perfect body, Essena doing her workout/yoga, Essena having fun, Essena eating fruits/vegetables/vegan suhis/vegan burgers drinking smoothies: ESSENA LIVING "THE PERFECT LIFE" AND BEING TOTALLY HAPPY!
She was gaining followers, money and contracts with expensive brands all around the world, so what is wrong with that? This young girl was having what a lot of teenagers want by doing her life, having fun with her friends and travelling, so what is the problem?
The answer is: a) she was loosing her credibility because she was going far away from her purpose (which was veganism) and b) she was unhappy or as she said "miserable".
A few weeks ago now she announced she was leaving the social media, including her whole career and what goes with it (followers, money, contracts...) to focus on what she really is because she lost her personality into "the social approbation" she spent years to look for. She criticises how social media are pushing us to be fake to each other/to ourselves: FOCUS ON APPERANCES. She deleted more than 2000 pictures of her instagram account and wrote new captions for the photos she left ("behind the images") in order to show what was really behind the "perfect image" she gave her life.
Obviously this announcement became the subject of a lot of articles, on internet especially, and made her even more famous. She still is on the internet and has a website/blog where she said "I will be talking about veganism, creative images which make sense, poetry, writing, interviews of people who inspire me". She also calls people to leave every type of social media for a week to see more, hear more, live more of the real life and just see what happen.
THE FACES OF SOCIAL MEDIA
"Social media" is composed of two words: "social" which is mostly positive because it is linked to relation between people and sharing, but also of "media" which are known as very dangerous because of what it shows to people, what it makes them believe. The question is "is social media a progress or a regression?". Does it help us to really socialise, or in contrary does it tear everyone appart from each other? Is the majority of the population aware that what we see on these platforms aren't true? Does seeing people living the life we won't ever live because actually they aren't either makes us more happy? I don't think so. Of course social media can be attractive, but it is also a trap where we start focusing on things that doesn't matter, that aren't even real, instead of putting our attention on things that are in need of it.
SO, PLEASE, PLEASE BE CAREFUL OF IT!
Bye xx
Juliette
I absolutely loved this article, what you say is true... social media can be some sort of trap and it's quite hard to get out of it because it's very attractive (at least to some people). Well done ;)
ReplyDeleteI don't want to write the all idea (because it would take dozens of lines), but there are some things that worrys me:
ReplyDelete1) Aren't social media going a bit too far?
2) Can we still talk of privacy on "social" medias?
3) Is it a sustainable and "good" fame?
I also saw something on 9GAG, it was a gril that posted photos of her on.... Instagram I guess, and one day she deleted everything, explaining that she has bee payed to do photos with special clothes and that taking phoos of her everytime and trying to look pretty to other people destroyed her. She gave a good lesson to people about social medias (ironic when you know the message was posted on her Instagram account).
Thank you Sarah! And Kellian I think the girl you talk about is the one I mentionned in this article (even though after this announcement a lot of people on internet did that too so maybe it is someone else). I agree with you that the fact that she posted it on her instagram account is ironic, but... well... this is where she will touch a lot of people!
ReplyDeleteVery interesting article!
ReplyDeleteI loved reading this article! So there are lot of things you said being really interesting. I totally agree with the fact that people lost their personalities wanting the "social approbation". You can see it especially on Instagram: the most famous account are really similar and this causes people to do the same as well without showing their real personality in order to be famous. I think it's a real danger for us and social medias shouldn't be as important as it actually is nowaday.
ReplyDelete