Insta-girl Essena O'Neill pulls back social media's glossy veneer

Do you ever find yourself scrolling through Instagram thinking about how everyone's life looks so amazing. They're always at the beach, looking at 10/10, having the best time, #blessed... All that stuff. It can get pretty overwhelming if you let it. For those of us who deal with it on a daily basis - and are old enough to know better - it's pretty obviously a construct. That photo looks amazing, but surely there's some poor sucker who sat their for an hour trying to make sure it looked as perfect as it did. Deep down you know that. Well we hope you do. But there's a lot of people who don't know that. Who aspire to be one of those instagram girls and live that perfect life. Aussie model Essena O'Neill is one such girl who has always appeared to be living that life. And today she decided to post a video to her quarter of a million YouTube subscribers to let them know there's something better out there.

"I had everything I ever wanted. Now I'm here and I see how contrived, fake and forced consistently proving to the world 'how amazing my life/body/self is". I spent everyday looking at a screen, viewing and comparing myself to others. It's easier to look at shiny and pretty things that appear happy than stopping and just getting real with yourself. Social media only became great for me because of the amount of effort I put in trying to portray this 'perfect' person, being born into the flesh I have and sharing emotional parts of my life. Being social media famous is a very unattainable thing for majority of people viewing this. I was attracted to the idea of being liked and of value. I put my value in numbers, not real life people, moments or my natural passions of art, writing... Posting on instagram consumed me. I can't you how beautiful life is without a phone, without social media, without comparing, or likes or followers. We are not followers, we are beings of individuality and love. I have never felt so free. I will be making a lot more videos talking more about what happened 'behind' the image for a lot of these 'perfect' photos. www.letsbegamechangers.com/videos."

Be sceptical about her reasons for doing it or whatever, but the basis of the message is fantastic: Don't follow people and aspire to be someone whose life is based around carefully staged photos. Just go do shit yourself and live your life for you.

Go forth and prosper friends! Go and see the real world, 'cause Instagram isn't it.