The Instagram star — who will turn 19 this week — created the website Let's Be Game Changers to explain her decision and to shed light on the fantasy world of social media. Meet Essena O'Neill: the 18-year-old powerhouse from Coolum who has half a million followers on Instagram, 200,000 subscribers on her YouTube and Tumblr accounts and 60,000 people viewing her Snapchat every day. Essena is part of the new age of 'Social Media Celebrity' and she's decided she's had enough and has quit social media for good. She criticizes the brands who paid for her to model, saying "we are a generation told to consume and consume, with no thought of where it all comes from and where it all goes" 
 
 She still has photos on her Instagram page, but according to The Sunshine Coast Daily, the Australian social media star has been deleting her photos over the past week. For someone to follow my content and think I wish I was you, that is the opposite of what I want to promote." She has edited the captions of her remaining photo and debunked the myth that many of her photos were "real" - many, in fact, were paid for by various companies. Her first video on the website was called "Why I Think Social Media Sucks."
– Essena O'Neill became obsessed with social media in high school. By age 16, she had 50,000 followers, and got her first offer to monetize her social media accounts: A bikini company sent her free bikinis if she'd post photos of herself wearing them; soon, the Australian teen was charging companies to post photos of herself wearing their clothes or using their products. She ultimately built up more than 570,000 Instagram followers, 250,000 YouTube subscribers, 250,000 Tumblr subscribers, and got more than 60,000 views on her Snapchat posts on average. Yet O'Neill, who turned 19 Tuesday, has quit it all, as she explains on her new website, Let's Be Game Changers. She posted a nearly 13-minute explanation of her choice here, and writes, "Never again will I let a number define me. IT SUFFOCATED ME." She deleted her Tumblr and Snapchat accounts, Business Insider reports, and she left Instagram up for a week, with the Sunshine Coast Daily reporting that she deleted some 2,000 photos and replaced the original captions of others with more honest ones, like this: "Was paid $400 to post a dress. ... Nothing is wrong with accepting brand deals. I just think it should be known. This photo had no substance, it was not of ethical manufacturing (I was uneducated at the time). SOCIAL MEDIA IS NOT REAL is my point." (Her Instagram and YouTube are now kaput, too.) What she'd really like to see (as evidenced by the capital letters): "PLEASE CAN SOMEONE MAKE A SOCIAL SHARING PLATFORM NOT BASED ON VALIDATION IN VIEWS/FOLLOWERS/LIKES BUT SHARED FOR REAL VALUE AND LOVE. THANK YOU. PLEASE HURRY UP." As for how she will make money without paid posts, well, her site is "100% free" but you can give her money anyway.