{"id":74,"date":"2016-11-23T19:09:56","date_gmt":"2016-11-23T19:09:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/?p=74"},"modified":"2017-01-21T20:00:24","modified_gmt":"2017-01-21T20:00:24","slug":"honest-instagram-truth-behind-photos","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/honest-instagram-truth-behind-photos\/","title":{"rendered":"Honest Instagram: the Truth Behind the Photos"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In October 2015, teenager and model\u00a0Essena O&#8217;Neill quit social media. Despite having over 500,000 followers, she shut down her Instagram account. She began the conversation on the fake-ness of the platform.<\/p>\n<p>She deleted more than 2000 photos and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/media\/2015\/nov\/03\/instagram-star-essena-oneill-quits-2d-life-to-reveal-true-story-behind-images\" target=\"_blank\">edited the captions<\/a> of the remaining posts so that they were more honest. Photos of her in a bikini were suddenly captioned with statements like &#8220;stomach sucked in, strategic pose, pushed up boobs.&#8221;<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/heHBcUOf_sA\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>In the\u00a0video above, Essena describes the time she turned off her phone for a week and realised she didn&#8217;t know herself without social media and without her physical appearance. She remebered obsessively checked how many likes her first selfie had for <strong>a week<\/strong> after she posted it. \u00a0As a result she realised that she was showing people that &#8220;likes and views equal worth.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>At 12 I thought I was nothing, and here at nearly 19 with all of these followers, I don&#8217;t even know what is real and what is not because I let myself be defined by something that is so not real. Being with people in your real life, hugging people, talking to people, going into the park out with nature, that is real f**king life.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Essena explains that her reason to quit social media was her 12 year old self. At 12 she compared\u00a0herself to images of models with the &#8220;perfect&#8221; lives and felt\u00a0worthless in comparison. However\u00a06 years later she was one of those models. People looked up to her; people wanted to\u00a0<em>be\u00a0<\/em>her.<\/p>\n<h3>The Aftermath<\/h3>\n<p>Following Essena&#8217;s dramatic departure from Instagram, others have followed in her footsteps. Editing their captions to be more real. Revealing the truth behind the carefully constructed\u00a0images.<\/p>\n<p>Last November London-based model, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.independent.co.uk\/news\/people\/stina-sanders-instagram-model-loses-thousands-of-followers-unfiltered-a7159031.html\" target=\"_blank\">Stina Sanders<\/a>, posted pictures which showed a more realistic side to her life. A photo of her chipped pedicure. A\u00a0selfie\u00a0after finishing her 2 month psychotherapy session for anxiety. Another selfie just before a colonic irrigation procedure. By the end of the week she had lost around 5000 followers.<\/p>\n<p>Blogger and model Rebecca Pearson opened up in an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/women\/womens-life\/11980031\/Instagram-confession-The-ugly-truth-behind-my-perfect-model-shots.html\" target=\"_blank\">article<\/a>\u00a0about the behind-the-scenes action of her Instagram posts. She remembered getting angry\u00a0with her\u00a0boyfriend for \u2018not taking it seriously&#8217;; not actually exercising and just putting on her workout clothes for a photo; and editing\u00a0the colour of her smoothie to make it look more appealing.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/thetab.com\/2015\/11\/04\/i-gave-my-instagrams-honest-captions-to-show-that-social-media-is-not-real-life-60821\" target=\"_blank\">Alexandra Harvey<\/a> wrote for The Tab\u00a0about her experience of editing her captions to be more realistic. Seems like there&#8217;s a\u00a0common theme with each of these stories. Every single one of these girls receive a <strong>huge<\/strong> amount of support. People are\u00a0happy this is being said.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/thetab.com\/2015\/11\/04\/i-gave-my-instagrams-honest-captions-to-show-that-social-media-is-not-real-life-60821\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-80\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment4-300x61.jpg\" alt=\"Instagram comment: So true!! Confidence shouldn't be gained through gaining attention on social media!\" width=\"300\" height=\"61\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment4-300x61.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment4.jpg 598w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/thetab.com\/2015\/11\/04\/i-gave-my-instagrams-honest-captions-to-show-that-social-media-is-not-real-life-60821\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter wp-image-81 size-medium\" src=\"http:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment3-300x73.jpg\" alt=\"Instagram comment: So true, in reality you're still beaut at any angle without a pose\" width=\"300\" height=\"73\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment3-300x73.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/56\/2016\/11\/lexicomment3.jpg 598w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>We are <strong>ready<\/strong> for this realisation and this Instagram revolution! Clearly many\u00a0us are aware of the falseness of the mass-filtered\u00a0lives seen across Instagram, but we&#8217;re too scared to speak out. Too worried about losing followers and likes. We are petrified\u00a0of\u00a0the idea of not conforming to society&#8217;s expectations of how we should look, act and\u00a0<em>be\u00a0<\/em>on social media.<\/p>\n<p>But really? It&#8217;s time to start speaking up and stopping conforming. It&#8217;s time for a more honest Instagram. Start actually living life, not living for Instagram.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In October 2015, teenager and model\u00a0Essena O&#8217;Neill quit social media. Despite having over 500,000 followers, she shut down her Instagram account. She began the conversation on the fake-ness of the platform. She deleted more than 2000 photos and edited the captions of the remaining posts so that they were more honest. Photos of her in&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/honest-instagram-truth-behind-photos\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":108,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[33,10,6,9,8,3],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":203,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74\/revisions\/203"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/108"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.blog.buprojects.uk\/2016-2017\/amy-janehughes\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}