An Australian social media star has made headlines after she deleted most of her photos and captioned those remaining with truthful accounts of the time and sponsorship behind each image.

Essena O'Neill, who has more than 500,000 followers on Instagram and 260,000 on YouTube, has decided to come clean about the story behind every one of her perfect pictures and tell her fans why they can't trust everything they see in their feed.

The 18-year-old Sunshine Coast blogger deleted many of her recent photos, while updating the captions on a select few older ones to explain the harms she perceived with social media celebrity culture.

"I didn't pay for the dress, took countless photos trying to look hot for Instagram, the formal made me feel incredibly alone," she revealed on a picture from her year 12 formal last year.