A 19-year-old aspiring model, Chloe Davison has committed suicide after she failed to get enough “likes” on her photos on social media.
The selfie-loving teen hanged herself in her bedroom at her family home in County Durham, United Kingdom.
Her 20-year-old devastated sister, Jade said Chloe struggled socially at school and rarely went out with friends, instead staying indoors and taking pictures of herself for social media.
The social media obsessed teen thought she “wasn’t good enough unless she was getting likes,” which is why she relied on Instagram and Snapchat to feel good about herself.
“She thought she wasn’t good enough unless she was getting loads of likes and comments. Chloe was crying many nights because someone had said something horrible about her online,” Jade said.
A family friend Nick Coombs who had known Chloe since she was young, said: “She was addicted to apps like Instagram and Snapchat. She would spend hours taking the perfect photo, but would delete it later if it didn’t get popular enough.”
The pretty 19-year-old was often targeted by online trolls who would send her nasty messages and mocked her appearance.
Coombs said that too many people felt they could say whatever they wanted to the attractive teen because it wasn’t face-to-face.
“She’d get hundreds of messages each day, mostly men asking her for sexual stuff, sometimes they were nice, but other times they told Chloe they wanted to hurt her.”
The girl’s mum, Clair Reynolds, said she blamed social media for what happened.
“Social media took over Chloe’s life, whether that be Snapchat or Facebook. Chloe was beautiful, but she didn’t see that. She cared too much about how other people saw her.
“After she started using social media several year ago, all she would talk about was how many likes she got.”
On Friday night, Chloe’s mum and sister returned home from a bar around 11:30pm, and found the teenager hanging in her bedroom.
Chloe had been taking selfies moments before she killed herself. When she was taken down, her hair and makeup were still perfect. She was wearing a new lingerie that she had been excited to model.