Social media star reveals loneliness of being social media star.

[fractional slacker]

(Wanted to post this in "Future Topics for FDR" forum, but not able to for whatever reason. Feel free to relocate post as necessary.)

 

Very attractive young woman from Australia uncovers and reveals the sadness she felt and experienced as a a social media star. Is now calling for her "followers" to reject vanity and live in the real world. Also interesting to see she is rejecting advertising revenue in favor of donations.
Would love to hear her interviewed by Stef, if possible.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gyI2Sugw6Yc
 

[Ray H.]

I'll do her a favor and not watch her videos.

[Carl Green]

i "struggled through it".

 

She's not whining about her life being hard, she's trying to reach out to other young people to tell them acceptance on social media isn't the way to achieve happiness.

[Wuzzums]

I find it charming how a 19 year old girl refers to the 2 or 3 years of her she spent working as having wasted her life. This video is really not for me, it's for other impressionable kids like her with no real guidance in their lives... however, I can't stop myself from pointing out the irony of her saying she's quitting social media by making the decision of living off social media.

[RCali]

It's a real problem, and very common. I suffered of the same, for most of my life, under different circunstances. I could only guess, what made her feel like she had to prove herself to others AND be more, just like Stefan very well explains for the case of Robin Williams. I felt the same thing, the only difference was that I wasn't as good looking, or very interested at all on this gigantic superficiality she went through, and that it made me very, very shy, and isolated. She was 18, at that time, and even if she doesn't go down to her core problem, she is definitely much closer to understanding that than most people. She shows some signs of inteligence, and, being in the position she is, it's likely she will influence a lot of people to see how shallow and unrewarding all of likes and shares and bullshit really are. If she goes down a path of learning and wisdom and knowledge, it can be that she will be someone quite important in this world.

 

And saying this woman was whiny is really just projecting something of your own. I felt none of this, but honesty and pain and hope for change and sympathy. I liked her, even though I'm not interested in listening to someone that's not very verbally skilled, regularly, or that may not have much to say, that I don't already know. I hope the best for her.

[Matthew Ed Moran]

I tried to listen to this, I'm not sure why. And maybe it's just me, but I really got nothing of substance out of her ramblings and skipped through most of it. Maybe I didn't want to listen to a hot, spoiled white girl whine about how hard her life is, or maybe her words were as empty as I perceived them to be. Wondering what others have to say about it.

 

certainly it wouldn't be a very substantive critique to just say the video lacks substance or that her words were "empty."

 

I thought her lesson was convoluted - I would have liked to hear more about where her parents were when she "felt like nothing" at 12 years old. It sounds like she felt these emotions in isolation. Is it a coincidence that this whole video is about "doing it for her 12 year old self?" I think she really wanted to share the loneliness and isolation she felt at 12 - she wanted to get it out. But alas, to what does she turn to do this? The nameless, faceless, amorphous blob of "social media"... And this is why I think she is fundamentally not doing anything different than what she describes herself as doing for the past few years. But she is pretending she is, which is harmful because it will prevent her from actually growing and healing her "12 year old self." So really, the video is more about what she isn't willing to do for her 12 year old self.

[Eternal Growth]

The positive feedback loop of ever more likes, followers, "success" and "popularity" led her really deep into a false self identity. But only in authenticity, only in the true self, can happiness be found. It felt to me like quite a lot of the true self came out in this video. 

[dsayers]

You can't fix a problem you cannot identify. This is why self-knowledge is literally foundational.

 

It seems she understands there's A problem, but not what the problem actually is. As such, she's going to try this, that, and the other, only to be disappointed when it doesn't work. There was a time in my life where, having engaged in this type of aimlessness, I was convinced that "the world" was trying to tell me I didn't belong here.

 

It's going to be even worse if she happens upon an arrangement that appears to work, because then she'll stop looking for the actual solution.

 

Worst of all is that so many of these people artificially supporting others with "likes" and "friend requests" lack self-knowledge also. Meaning they're going to echo untruths and cause others to go astray. Let it never be said that the reason rationality isn't instantly adopted is not the effect of momentum of the past.

[fractional slacker]

Maybe it's a ploy for different source of revenue due to falling numbers. Maybe I am a sucker for crocodile tears. Who can be sure. What I do know is the youth is obsessed with trivial, superficial, flashy, bells and whistles of false connections via platforms like Twitter, Instagram, etc. This young woman seems to be pointing that out. Having won the social media lottery, that says something of her character I might suggest.

The last 30 seconds says a lot to her rambling confusion give her inspirations include the likes of Eckhart Tolle, and Brene Brown. What if she were persuaded to pursue self-knowledge and philosophy instead of new-age gibberish? It's a long shot, I know. But if you take her at her word and she is sacrificing a lot of money to find happiness, it's not out of the question.

[Crallask]

And now the vid is down, hmmmmm

[fractional slacker]

And now the vid is down, hmmmmm

Her channel has been deleted.  If you want to see her getting attacked for her decision (largely by angry vegans), look up Essena Oneill on youtube.

[shosh]

Here is the deleted video. There are more on her website: http://www.letsbegamechangers.com/

 

 

 

And here is a response video from two girls that Essena stayed with while she was in LA. It's all petty highschool drama to me, but it's definitely more than what's on the surface.

 

[mahayana]

It wasn't until I watched the documentary #BeingThirteen on CNN last month that I became aware of just how bad social media addiction has become. This show scared the shit out of me.  The phenomenon of teenagers becoming completely absorbed into a superficial, validation seeking virtual world isn't solely a problem for internet celebs. For those of you who cannot relate to a super hot chick complaining about how empty internet stardom feels, check out this show. If you have kids or are planning to, this pertains to you. 57% of kids polled would rather be grounded than lose access to their phone. I'm wondering how I'm going to protect my daughter from this when she grows up. It's obvious the girl in the video didn't have the greatest parents but after seeing all this I'm tempted to keep my child away from the internet until she's 30.
 

http://www.cnn.com/specials/us/being13

[Guest Gee]

And now the vid is down, hmmmmm

 

Paid to put stuff up, paid to take stuff down?

[David Ottinger]

Anyone have a mirror?  Not for her.  I mean a link. 

 

 

 

Found one:

 

 

[David Ottinger]

Her message was simple, and not simple in a bad way.  That message being: "I recognize that my life has become superficial, and I want something more meaningful."  And, so, in essence she resigned from her current job -- if you want to call it that -- in order to pursue higher aspirations.

 

 

My guess is that she was neglected growing up, and so she pursued external validation to fill that hole.  But, she realized her social interactions weren't meaningful relationships.  It was just numbers.  Thus, it was just another food without nutrition, to put it analogously. 

 

 

And, if my interpretation is accurate, then good for her. 

[BaconForAllah]

Excellent, rambling and all. She's young, she into veganism and if you watch her other "How people make $1000s in social media" video she wishes to talk about gender equality and other pretty standard progressive/hippie tropes as well (she's only 18 or 19) so she obviously hasn't been engaged in philosophy and self-knowledge until now. This would be something of her snapping point and I'm glad for her, it's really pathetic when people have been reading and studying like on this forum for years dismiss or think little of someone like her, who's potentially at the starting point of her intellectual journey.

 

You guys claiming she's whining about her perfect life are clueless. She's talking about the facade of this life she lived and how all of social media is a business (which has me recalling Seinfeld's response to Kramer about not knowing people could wake up from comas: "I didn't know it was possible not to know that"). That people actually think social media is anything but companies selling products/services is what her now enraged friends, models, etc. are probably pissed off about. They appeal to young kids (mostly teen girls), who still live in delusion that they tap on their phones and see beautiful pictures and send messages to one another and that's all there is to it. This girl's at least trying to wake the substantial portion of that demographic that she has [had] connections with up to the reality, I think that's great.

[A4E]

Seems this confession was not entirely an honest effort to become more "real," engage in something more meaningful, and shrug off the "facade" of social media. Is this still an important message?

I noticed that the video currently has 8000 likes and 1700 dislikes. Which might be representative of the percentage of people who are thankful for facts and truth, and who still believe the official story.

[David Ottinger]

 

Seems this confession was not entirely an honest effort to become more "real," engage in something more meaningful, and shrug off the "facade" of social media. Is this still an important message?

 

Seems? 

 

 

I watched that video, and I'm very annoyed by this guy's nit picking since it doesn't actually negate Essena's premise.  And that's what I was expecting to see, so it bugged me to find this guy using obfuscation tactics to re-frame her claims as though they were not estimations, or even exaggerated estimations purposely done to illustrate a point.  For example,  when she says, "100s of pictures," that's clearly hyperbole, and it doesn't need to be explained.  Why would anyone being honest quote that and take it literally?    And worse, when he went through the pictures explaining the day, he was pointing out how Essena was modeling various items that day.   There were at least 3 outfits she put on if not more.  Maybe one was of her day clothes.   Whatever the count is, she was taking shots of various items and she was spending the day to do that, so that accounts for her hour estimation and for the amount of shots.   And, from what I gather, Essena sat down with them and went through that picture load -- which is, roughly estimated, as 100s of pictures.   Essena's overall point was that her uploaded shots on social media may look effortless and spontaneous, but they're not.    That was the core of her point, and this guy just substantiated her point despite his efforts to use that evidence to call her out and accuse her of being fake -- which is rather ironic given that Essena's whole video is an admission to how fake she has been acting.  

 

And, don't get me wrong, Essena is playing some sort of damsel in distress card with all her crying.  But, she is a victim of her own choices.  Her farewell to social media was a plea for donations, and I think it's safe to assume it was specifically targeted at men to save her from her distress.

 

I'm guessing this drama got dubbed as news worthy because it appeared to be a scandal.    Nope!  Just a young girl quitting a business venture while ironically turning around and asking for free money.