November 4, 2015

"Essena O'Neill was a social media celebrity, with over half a million followers on instagram and deals with brands to advertise their products. She was 16. Then she decided to stop."

"She is in the process of editing the captions on her old instagram posts to reflect the reality of what she was experiencing in the moment (like loneliness or insecurity) or to talk about the artifice behind them."
and yet another photo taken purely to promote my 16 year old body. This was my whole identity. That was so limiting. Made me incredibly insecure. You have no idea.

Just the first sentence of this comment contains so much. When you're an attractive young woman, it's easy to feel like you're playing the game and winning - only to realize much later you were never even considered a player, just the trophy. O'Neill is wise to realize this at such a young age.

25 comments:

halojones-fan said...

Maybe it's wisdom, maybe it's a moody sixteen-year-old acting out to get attention. "Oh, like, duh. Here's another post of me being so fucking goddamn cute. Yeah, ha ha, smile little girl, make sure we all know how fuckin cute you are. You were miserable back then, you just didn't know it!"

Rick said...

When you're an attractive young woman, it's easy to feel like you're playing the game and winning - only to realize much later you were never even considered a player, just the trophy. O'Neill is wise to realize this at such a young age.

Wise would be her realizing others aren't even a trophy. You have to have chips to get into the game. Her looks were an asset to attain those chips far ahead of her peers, how she employs them in the game is an open question. Having chips doesn't guarantee victory.

If her statements are genuine she's already lost. If her statements are an effort to establish a new path of actually playing the game we'll have to see how she does.

Laslo Spatula said...

"... and yet another photo taken purely to promote my 16 year old body."

I assume asking where Mom and Dad were while she posted these pictures is impolite.

Meanwhile, I will self-identify as a woman and follow her into the bikini fitting room.

I am Laslo.

Laslo Spatula said...

Surely one of Dad's friends or co-workers has masturbated to bikini pictures of his daughter.

Maybe all of them.

I am Laslo.

madAsHell said...

Skinny white girl with long legs, and her thighs don't touch when she puts her knees together. What's not to like?

I'm surprised she doesn't have a recording contract like Ms. Grande.

Ron Winkleheimer said...

I don't know, Cindy Crawford and Kathy Ireland used their looks to launch themselves into lucrative business careers. Isn't Crawford supposed to be a billionaire?

Seems like they weren't just trophies. The fact of the matter is that beauty can be a form of power. The trick is learning to utilize it correctly.

SGT Ted said...

What she is doing is a form of sexual deniability that women engage in. It's the modern, social media version of claiming "I'm not that kind of girl" after conduct that directly refutes the claim. She is editing the past to favor her reputation. She will never edit a post to say "I was enjoying being a bit slutty right then".

SGT Ted said...

"She is editing the past to favor her future reputation." is a better sentence.

Baelzar said...

She may be cutting her own throat here; she's going "inside baseball" on paid Instagram promotion so she probably won't get any more. She's young enough to look back on this 5-10 years from now and slap herself. This isn't porn - it's clothes modeling.

Principles don't pay the bills.

Laslo Spatula said...

Parents' Rules for Sixteen-Year-Old daughter's Instagram Bikini Pictures:

1. No posing on All Fours.

2. No Camel Toe.

3. No Erect Nipples.

4. No Butt Views where Crack is Delineated.

5. No Transparent Wet White Bikinis.

6. No Hand Bras.

7. No Underboob.

8. No Props near the Mouth (i.e. bananas, popsicles, etc).

9. Thigh Gap only when Tasteful; Absolutely no Thigh Gap from Behind.

10. No hands beneath bikini fabric (this includes straps).


You have to know where to draw the line.


I am Laslo.

BarrySanders20 said...

From the article: "Anybody who's ever Facetuned a selfie or tweeted a humblebrag to mask the vast pit of loneliness inside them knows that social media isn't real."

I dont know what that is or means, but I dont think I've ever done it. Yet social media is real. The people who consume it are smart enough to know that others only post the good pics. It's no different than an old fashioned photo album that only has the one good photo with all of the others in the basement somewhere.

I do like to mix the social media references with the 8th grade kids I coach. I ask them if they FaceSnap or to send a twitter at me if they'll miss a game. Trying to emphasize the generational gap, as if it needs emphasizing. Now I have some new arsenal with "Facetuned a selfie" and "Tweeted a humblebrag."

David said...

Editing the captions proved too much for her. Apparently she has deleted her account.

Jezebel said "Our good pal Essena is rearing up against The Man in the only way she knows how—by getting even more attention—and all I can say is: Namaste, girlfriend."

I would not be quite this harsh, but I think we need to wait and see if she actually learned any lesson or is just getting more sophisticated in the self promotion.

She does have a beautiful body, which lives on in Google Images (among other places.)

I Have Misplaced My Pants said...

I'm sure her parents are enjoying the lifestyle she likely provides for them. I hope it's all worth turning their daughter into an almost literal media whore. The poor thing.

JAORE said...

Never heard of her. Of course I'm so far out of the loop you can't see it from here. Did a search of her pics. Nothing in my, admittedly small, sample tat is beyond what you can see every day in a large city or at the beach. Pretty girl, but I'll bet there is a replacement (or a hundred) waiting in the wings.

I suppose this is like the child star that gets tired of the 24/7 grind of always being "on", rebels and quits. Perhaps at 16 she thinks that $XXX nest egg is enough to last forevah!

I suspect some of those rarities feel good about quitting later. I suspect many have the thought they can pick it back up at any time, or find another gig just as lucrative.

Good luck with that.

Wince said...

She needs a spanking and a hug.

Beldar said...

Pardon me for wondering if her hopes for a publicity surge of exactly the sort she's getting -- lifting her into her 15 minutes of fame from out of a cloud of other Instagram Supermodel-wannabes -- might have had something to do with her epiphany.

mikee said...

What are the laws nowadays about sending and receiving child porn in her jurisdiction?

Just asking, because if some of the posts and pictures are suggestive in any way, she maybe realized that a prosecutor could be looking at charging her with kiddy porn, along with her followers. I'll never know - it takes more than an Althouse clickbait post to get me to click on a 16 year old girl's website purposefully. And taking the pics down might be avoiding potential proscution in future, should either fundamental Christians or Sharia compliant leftists take over the local prosecutors office.

And hey, if you're over 16 stop going to 16 year olds' websites for the pictures. Ick.

Beldar said...

In other words, Prof. Althouse: How do you know this isn't her way of trying harder to become a player? 'Cause it walks, talks, and quacks like a duck to me.

SGT Ted said...

Girls like to look pretty and attractive. It's called "biology".

The denial of it being real is to avoid slut shaming from her current college feminist peers for wanting to look pretty in skimpy clothing.

SGT Ted said...

"That's not really me; I'm not that sort of girl."

An inability to face the truth.

OGWiseman said...

Being a trophy is a pretty sweet gig. Sure it doesn't last long, but what does? Plenty of time to be a player later.

Ann Althouse said...

"In other words, Prof. Althouse: How do you know this isn't her way of trying harder to become a player? 'Cause it walks, talks, and quacks like a duck to me."

That was the first thing I thought.

Nichevo said...

She's not even that hot.

BN said...

Laslo said: "You have to know where to draw the line."

If we could draw, we wouldn't need instagram.

jg said...

This way she can enjoy the attention twice. One by winning the trophy game and again by claiming to be above it while drawing attention to her greatest hits.