Popular Instagram user starts "Social Media Is Not Real Life" campaign

(WTXF) - Fashion bloggers, fitness experts, and your everyday photogenic members of society make up a new class of celebrities who find most of their fame on Instagram.

Essena O'Neill is no different.

She's an 18-year-old, regular teen from Australia and just happens to have half a million followers on Instagram. She also had 200,000 followers on YouTube and Tumblr and 60,000 on Snapchat before they became inactive.

Many of her posts included selfies, outfits, and #fitspo or fitness photos.

But last week, O'Neill decided that she was done with social media.

She deleted 2000 photos, renamed her account to "Social Media Is Not Real Life," and also changed the captions on existing photos with the truth behind them.

The new captions include how much she was paid for certain posts, how many attempts it took to get the shot, and the pressures she felt to appear perfect.

"I've spent the majority of my teenage life being addicted to social media, social approval, social status, and my physical appearance," O'Neill wrote in her last Instagram post published on October 27, "[Social media] is 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."

"How can we see ourselves and our true purpose/talents if we are constantly viewing others?" she said, "Many of us are in so deep we don't realize [social media's] delusional powers and the impact it has on our lives."

In addition to changing the basis of her Instagram, O'Neill made a video on YouTube explaining how people make money off social media.

Since then, she's moved from YouTube to Vimeo, where she will upload daily videos because of its "positive and value based ranking, not likes or followers or BS ads."