Bad Ass Babes is a monthly series that features women who have gone out into the universe and made it a better, more interesting place. These are the women who make the world go ’round. The women that our daughters need to know about and hear about and learn from.
I should start by saying that when I started this series last month, 18 year old Essena O’Neill was not at all the type of woman I envisioned myself featuring. Scientists and aid workers and intrepid explorers? Yes. Social media stars? Not so much.
But Essena changed the game entirely last week by quitting her popular and incredibly lucrative Instagram and YouTube accounts. She deleted 2,000 Instagram photos, changed her account name to “Social Media Is Not Real Life,” and recaptioned the remaining photos to reflect what was really going on when they were taken before eventually shutting down the account entirely.
“I had acne here, this is a lot of makeup. I was smiling because I thought I looked good. Happiness based on aesthetics will suffocate your potential here on earth.”