Social Media Influencers and their Effect on Society

This blog is a project for Study Unit MCS3953, University of Malta

In my previous blog post, I spoke about the harsh truths of Social Media as a curse. I went into how social media can drive a person to believe that he/she are not good enough in their own skin, and to constantly edit and polish their photos to make them acceptable, to help them fit in and to reach the social standards..

Although there are many famous people who use their spotlight incorrectly, there has been a rise in what they call ‘Social Media Influencers’. A perfect definition for an Influencer would be ‘a user on social media who has established credibility in a specific industry and has access to a large audience’. I for one am a massive believer in Social Media Influencers. I follow a large amount of people who motivate me and push me to strive in areas that I would have never imagined myself to be. These are the kind of people who use social media for the better good, to create identities that people can relate to and look up to, to use their large platform for the sake of reaching out, to teach, and to just give advice on daily issues as well as something simple like giving product reviews.

When I talk about influencers using their platform for the greater good, I feel like I need to use a few examples of people that have tried to change the ‘curse’ of social media and make people aware of what actually occurs ‘behind the scenes’. A perfect example is influencer Essena O’Neill.

Essena O’Neill was once a Social Media Influencer who had half a million followers on Instagram, 200,000 subscribers on Youtube and 60,000 friends on Snapchat. However, the 18 year old girl who seemed to have the ‘perfect’ life decided to quit Social Media and take a stand against the ideals that social media presents.

O’Neill did this by deleting over 2,000 Instagram photos and renaming her account to the name “Social Media is Not Real Life”. Essena also edited the captions of the photos that she decided to keep, to reflect the truth of what actually happened behind the image. (As seen in the photo above).

“Without realising, I’ve spent majority of my teenage life being addicted to social media, social approval, social status and my physical appearance”

Essena was a brave teen who claimed that the pressure of social media consumed her.

“Social media, especially how I used it, isn’t real. It’s contrived images and edited clips ranked against each other. It’s a system based on social approval, likes, validation in views, success in followers. It’s perfectly orchestrated self absorbed judgement. I was consumed by it.”

On a positive note, Essena has now launched her own website called “Let’s be Game Changers” where she hopes to continue to educate people about the destructive nature of trying to get social approval online.

Another courageous Influencer just like Essena, is social media editor, stylist, and blogger Jadè Tuncdoruk. Jade also gets real with her 190,000 Instagram followers as she believes that we need to see people being ‘more real’.

According to the authentic model, the perfect world that we see on her ‘jadetunchy’ is a far cry from reality. Thus, Jade wanted to show her fan base that life is not all glitzy and glamorous. She too, like the rest of us has her bad days. She then came up with the idea to share her “Life Unfiltered”.

Jade created a second Instagram account, which goes by the name “therealjadetunchy” which only has unedited photos, funny videos, and a place where she can open up and talk about her life.

“I just wanted to specifically target younger women to help them feel better about themselves. I know how hard it can be to have this pressure of body images these days.”

Her second account is there to show life ‘without a filter’ and without trying to always look the best she could possibly be. Hence, to be REAL. Jade opened up about how anxious Social Media began to make her feel. She was constantly worried about what her followers would think if they saw her in person.. but not anymore. Now she is happier than ever due to the fact that there are absolutely no expectations anymore. Just reality.

Social Media Platforms like Instagram can easily make girls or women feel as if their bodies aren’t good enough, as people edit their pictures and add filters to make them seem ‘perfect’. Now more than ever, with body image issues being identified as one of young peoples top concerns, we strongly need brave influencers to be authentic and truthful to their followers. Essena and Jade are perfect examples of influencers that use their large following for the greater good.

We need more courageous influencers, however, unfortunately some are reluctant to show their true selves because they are afraid they will lose out on business opportunities.. yet the truth is, they do not realise how refreshing it actually is to see people online being real.

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