How FAKE / REAL is social media really?!

Ciao dearies,

Sorry for not blogging for a while, there is a lot going on, working a lot and not really being inspired or feeling like blogging were all part of my reason. But I am inspired, have some things to share and there is a little bit more time for me to write about these things again.
Yesterday I went to Amsterdam to visit press agencies and see the upcoming collections from some of my favorite brands. A lot of fun, catching up, eating the most yummy and most pretty red velvet cake, getting tired of running around from PR agency to the next one, but mostly it was inspiring!

But today I want to talk to you about an issue and I am mostly very interested in hearing YOUR opinion on this matter, so please join the discussion afterwards 🙂

There are some discussions going on about the 19 year old  Australian Instagram model & socialite Essena O’Neill who told the world that social media is FAKE. Her ‘coming out’ and ‘opening up to the world’ got viral pretty quickly and there have been a lot of online reactions. So I asked myself: How FAKE / REAL is social media really?!

See above the viral video from Essena and read on to read my reaction and my opinion on this subject.

Baci,
Saranda

Follow me on:  

So Essena decided to stop with social media because in her world and in her point of view, ALL social media is fake. Okay I get her point, we don’t share moments of ourselfs crying from pain / heartbreak / a family member or whatever on social media. I think a lot of us try to show mostly the good sides of their love on Instagram. But does this makes the good moments fake? No, you are just creating a sort of border because some things are maybe to intimate to share on your social channels.

Two former ‘social media girlfriends’ of Essena pretty much got super upset because of her video. They tell us how Essena was visiting them just a couple of weeks ago and how they had a super good time together. Yeah I’ll be pretty freaking upset too when I had this girl staying with me and than afterwards she’s claiming how fake it all was.

Basically the whole blogger world is responding and I really wanted to share my point of view and wanted to know your POV.

Personally I think that the image we build, the things we show the world, can go both ways! As a blogger my social media and my blog, but also the way I act to fellow bloggers / fans / pr firms can be as FAKE or as REAL as I want it to be. Everyone is in control of their own actions, are we not? So when Essena O’Neill is ranting about how FAKE social media is, she’s probably just talking about herself. HER social media was apparently super fake. She decided not to be honest to her followers about sponsorship. Pretty much her own fault.

As a blogger we are put in a position where we can take on every single partnership with a brand, go for the quick and dirty money OR we can select. In which case we will only work with brands we have a connection to, where we only show items we really love and would really wear or want to have! This very difference can make a blog or a social media channel FAKE or REAL. Because if we go for the last option, it should not even matter if something is sponsored or not, because it won’t change our opinions. In case you really LOVE a brand it would not make a difference whether you bought your outfit yourself or if it has been given to you. If, for one moment, we only look at the bloggers opinion and being biased. Of course it would be a form of not being honest so I won’t suggest not disclosing collaborations.

Furthermore I think posing or working to create a perfect photo from a real moment does not have to be fake, it just takes some more time and positioning which takes away from the first real candid photo. But it does not have to mean that the candid real moment did not happen. Right? For example I sometimes wear an OOTD and I can not shoot it for my blog that day, so I’ll shoot multiple looks in one day, maybe fine tune them a little bit. But it are still outfits that I really wear, outfits that I really like or love and therefore they are REAL. Photo shopping your photos, making yourself skinny with computer techniques (while not working for a healthy body), deleting every thing you think is a flaw, giving yourself another jawline, better cheeks, bigger boobs on the photos, that is FAKE.

As I said a lot of bloggers are responding and what Gabrielle Epstein had to saw was one of the texts that inspired me to write and publish this blogpost.

MY VIEWS ON SOCIAL MEDIA: Social media is whatever you make it. You have the power to choose whether it has a positive or negative impact on your life, and when you think it’s starting to become addictive, you alone have responsibility to switch off your phone and laptop and disengage from technology. Of course Instagram isn’t real life. Everyone, myself included, chooses the highlight reel of their life to present on social media – we all know that and it is all our choice to be a part of it. However, that doesn’t mean I have ever pretended to be someone that I am not on Instagram. Societies pressure to conform and be liked and accepted affects everyone at some stage of their life, and stems from a variety of factors – school, work, friendship groups, relationships and social media. However in all of these situations if you allow yourself to be pressured into presenting a false version of yourself that is a direct result of your own free will and intent. Part of growing up is taking responsibility for your actions and for any issues that are a direct result of your life decisions. I will always consider myself to be very grateful and humbled to be in a position to take advantage of the opportunity that Instagram has given me, but I want to be clear that my value of self worth has nothing to do with likes or comments. The belief I have in myself stems from a very loving and supporting circle of family and friends who instilled in me the ability to understand that self worth and happiness will never, and can never, be based on other people’s opinions or expectations of you – especially not the number of followers you have on Instagram. It’s important to acknowledge that I know not everyone will agree with my opinion and that’s totally fine! But choosing to use social media as a platform to tell people social media is a lie is hypocritical and contradicts the very same notion. Take responsibility for yourself and your own actions – the potential to create the life you wish to live is completely in each of our hands. #chooseyourreality For the full version, read the link in my bio✌?️✌?

Een foto die is geplaatst door Gabrielle Grace Epstein (@gabbyepstein) op 4 Nov 2015 om 1:37 PST

In conclusion, social media can be both very fake or super real. It is whatever we as a blogger / social media generation make of it.

So now for you, what do you think of the whole discussion and what is your point of view on social media? How FAKE / REAL is social media really?!