Why are some illusions maintained, while others are broken down?
Sometimes, the burden of maintaining the illusion causes people to crack under its weight.
Essena O'Neill, an Australian model who was sponsored by major companies to promote their brands on the social media platform Instagram, recently renounced her life in the spotlight. She changed the captions on her Instagram posts to expose the photos for what they were: fake, edited, an illusion.
Essena O'Neill, an Australian model who was sponsored by major companies to promote their brands on the social media platform Instagram, recently renounced her life in the spotlight. She changed the captions on her Instagram posts to expose the photos for what they were: fake, edited, an illusion.
sOn her website, O’Neill wrote ”[From 12 to 16, I was] wishing I could receive validation from numbers on a screen...editing myself and life to be that beautiful, fitspo, positive, bright girl online.” By highlighting her fake online profile for what it really was, O’Neill tore down the facade for her millions of followers. O’Neill’s actions are unprecedented among the “internet famous”, but her opinion of social media becoming shared by an ever-growing number of people.
Grace Ascione, a junior at Westfield High School, explained her view of social media: “I can think of a couple people off of the top of my head who invest more time into their social media profiles and friends than necessary. It's a distraction...I'm lucky if I count 12 times that a classmate is whipping out their phone in class to text someone, or to go on Twitter.” Ascione, while in the minority, is not alone in her view of social media as a distraction. SelfControl, an app designed to block users from wasting time on social media, boasts an impressive 1.5 million downloads. Steve Lambert, the founder of SelfControl, created his app after realizing how much time he spent being unproductive on social media, which he refers to as a "distraction on steroids."
Other times, an insider's perspective can bring down the illusion. Aliyah Barnes, a junior at Westfield High School who had the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the reality television show Real Housewives of New Jersey, expressed her disillusionment with reality television: “It’s kind of bad, because I was actually on the set of a reality TV show, and it was all scripted. They told them all what to do, and honestly it was like they were actors.” Barnes can no longer watch reality television shows because she knows that the subject matter is fake.
However, social media usage has been rising for the past decade, especially among children and adolescents. “If anything, the social media trend is going to go up for a while. I don’t see it ending any time soon,” Ascione stated.
As the number of people on social media rises, the illusion continues to thrive. More and more social media platforms are created each year: Vine, Snapchat, and Instagram are three of the latest sites dedicated to sharing photos and videos of people's lives. Reality television also has a strong future ahead of it, as it remains an inexpensive, safe and popular genre for television networks;
62 new reality television shows will premiere in the winter of 2015 alone. Obviously, the public's need for fame-focused media is not going anywhere any time soon.
Grace Ascione, a junior at Westfield High School, explained her view of social media: “I can think of a couple people off of the top of my head who invest more time into their social media profiles and friends than necessary. It's a distraction...I'm lucky if I count 12 times that a classmate is whipping out their phone in class to text someone, or to go on Twitter.” Ascione, while in the minority, is not alone in her view of social media as a distraction. SelfControl, an app designed to block users from wasting time on social media, boasts an impressive 1.5 million downloads. Steve Lambert, the founder of SelfControl, created his app after realizing how much time he spent being unproductive on social media, which he refers to as a "distraction on steroids."
Other times, an insider's perspective can bring down the illusion. Aliyah Barnes, a junior at Westfield High School who had the opportunity to go behind the scenes of the reality television show Real Housewives of New Jersey, expressed her disillusionment with reality television: “It’s kind of bad, because I was actually on the set of a reality TV show, and it was all scripted. They told them all what to do, and honestly it was like they were actors.” Barnes can no longer watch reality television shows because she knows that the subject matter is fake.
However, social media usage has been rising for the past decade, especially among children and adolescents. “If anything, the social media trend is going to go up for a while. I don’t see it ending any time soon,” Ascione stated.
As the number of people on social media rises, the illusion continues to thrive. More and more social media platforms are created each year: Vine, Snapchat, and Instagram are three of the latest sites dedicated to sharing photos and videos of people's lives. Reality television also has a strong future ahead of it, as it remains an inexpensive, safe and popular genre for television networks;
62 new reality television shows will premiere in the winter of 2015 alone. Obviously, the public's need for fame-focused media is not going anywhere any time soon.