Self-Worth in the Social Media Age
Eighteen year-old Australian model and social media sensation, Essena O’Neill, recently posted a video with a startling announcement – she is “quitting social media.” With 500,000 followers on Instagram, 200,000 on YouTube and Tumblr, and 60,000 on Snapchat, she built a career by mastering the art of capturing the perfect selfie and championing products for her corporate sponsors. Ultimately, she discovered no matter how many “likes” and “followers” she gained, she felt empty and unhappy.
As she explained the rationale for her decision to abandon her former social media presence, she recounted the path that led to her self-worth becoming inextricably intertwined with her internet personality:
“I let numbers define me at twelve, and that stopped me becoming the person that I am and that I should be. At twelve, I loved writing, I loved art, I loved anything creative, I loved anything beautiful and real about the world. There’s so many things I could have done with my time, that I could have just enjoyed…I’m getting really emotional because I feel like at twelve, I thought I was nothing, and then here, at nearly nineteen, with all of these followers, I don’t even know what is real and what is not, because I’ve let myself be defined by something that is so not real. Being with people in your real life, hugging people, talking to people, going out to the park into nature, that is…real life, and I didn’t do it the majority of my life because I was just living in a screen, wishing that people would value me, that people would hear me, that people would just know me…”
What was most significant and heartbreaking about this video to me was the explanation that she gave for how she ended up in this dark and empty place:
“At twelve, because I felt lonely and different, instead of, you know, pursuing art and writing, it was easier to follow people that ‘looked like’ they were happy. It was easy to follow people online that had heaps of views, that were beautiful by society’s standards. I looked at them, and studied them, and envied them, and wished I was them. It’s easier to want and sit and view online; it’s a lot harder to sit alone with yourself and get real with your life. No one does that anymore.”
At twelve years-old, when she felt lonely and different, instead of connecting with others who affirmed her and encouraged her to develop her own self-esteem, she started living vicariously through the pictures that she saw on social media. Convinced of her own lack of self-worth, she started to re-create herself as one of the people whom she admired online. A beautiful, unique, creative young woman worked incredibly hard, throughout her entire adolescence, to erase the person she really was in order to gain the approval of others and income from the corporations that hired her to promote their products online.
At Merrie-Woode, we have embraced the “Unplugged and Fully Connected” policy, but it is more than just a policy prohibiting electronic devices in Camp. When we are laughing, playing, dressing up, singing, and dancing, it is real. We aren’t taking pictures of ourselves to get “likes” on Instagram – we are just having fun! It is an outer expression of our true emotion of joy. We also learn that achieving a goal is much more difficult than snapping a photo. Through hard work and determination, we develop the esteem that comes from true mastery of a skill.
In addition, we connect with others in a real way – not through a fake online personality colored by corporate self-interest – but through living together, day in and day out, seeing each other’s triumphs and defeats, encouraging each other, giving hugs, having long talks, and building true friendships that last a life time. A couple of themes that we hear consistently year to year from young women are that they discovered who they really are or felt like they were their “best selves” at Merrie-Woode. Perhaps it is because they feel free to allow themselves to be seen for who they really are.
Essena is now discovering for the first time at age nineteen, what I hope Merrie-Woode girls already know: it takes courage to let go of the mask of physical appearance and to let others see your true self. We are fortunate that the young women who come to us at age twelve (or younger) are loved by their counselors and their friends for who they really are. Our campers develop a strong sense of self-worth, and return home fortified by this affirmation of their talents, personality, and character. It is my hope that if any Merrie-Woode girls are tempted to fall into the trap of seeking validation from others, through social media or otherwise, that they will remember how much they are loved by all of us here. They will remember the days we spent playing beneath Old Bald, when no one wore make-up, but we sang at the tops of our lungs, laughed until we cried, hugged as hard as we could, and it was REAL.