BeReal – a social media app that launched in 2020 – is quickly gaining popularity among users and generations. Touting an opportunity for people to “be real,” I downloaded the app to see if it was worth the hype, and, spoiler – it isn’t.
How to be “authentic”
When my friend sent me an invitation to join BeReal, an ad for the app flashed across the text: “What if social media was different than this?” The ad then showed a montage, highlighting people posing and creating glossy (re: filtered) pictures, videos, and selfies that one would be accustomed to seeing on Instagram or Snapchat.
The ad continues: “It’s now possible on BeReal… No filters. No likes. No followers. No bullshit. No ads. Just your friends, for real.” Sure, okay! Fair enough.
The way it works is simple: At a random, predetermined time each day, BeReal notifies its users that it’s time to take a picture – you only have two minutes to snap the picture once you click the time-sensitive notification. At this point, your camera will take both a front- and back-facing picture simultaneously, and once taken, the pair of pictures shows up on your friends’ feeds. The kicker, as mentioned in the ad, is that you can’t filter or edit your photo once it’s taken (unlike Instagram or Snapchat). Users also have the option of sharing their “Reals” with either only their friend list, or it can be made public – causing the Real to end up on the app’s “Discovery” page.
You can choose to allow location sharing as well as react to your friends’ photos and/or leave a comment on it should you choose (this can also be done to people’s Reals you don’t know, simply by tapping “Discovery”). Additionally, users can see how many retakes of a photo a person took to capture their “real” moment, and you get alerted if someone takes a screenshot of your Real – a direct nod to Snapchat.
Fuel to the fire
The premise of BeReal is noble enough, I suppose. The same friend who invited me to the app said that it’s a nod to the original Facebook status update – an answer to the question, “What are my friends really up to?” And that’s a nice way of putting it, if it weren’t for a litany of problems staring users directly in the face.
If the app is designed for its user base to be their most authentic, unfiltered selves, why does it allow unlimited Real retakes? Two retakes, maybe, but unlimited? Not to mention that when someone does retake a picture, you can see just how many they took by clicking three little dots on their post – this is, I suppose, the app’s attempt at ensuring its users are being the most real because how “real” can you be if you can perfect your pose and adjust your camera angle as many times as you please?
Moreover, if BeReal is trying to promote authentic insights into our day-to-days – presumably to lessen the dangerously comparative and competitive nature of social media – why can I scroll endlessly on the “Discovery” page? Just because the pictures aren’t edited or filtered in any way doesn’t mean that a person can’t still be sitting at home, scrolling through stranger’s static Reals, wondering why their life – even an unfiltered one – isn’t as interesting as someone else’s. And isn’t that ultimately the problem with social media, writ-large?
In its ad, BeReal lauds itself as being the antithesis to more popular social media platforms in its unfiltered-ness, allowing (finally!) for people to show their authentic selves. The problem lies in the fact that while proclaiming to be different, BeReal borrows pages from the exact platforms it claims to distance itself from. You can scroll, comment, caption, and react to posts – both your friends’ or strangers’ – just like you can on Instagram and Snapchat. As aforementioned, you can take unlimited pictures prior to posting, ensuring that at least one of them will be to your liking. Sure, there is a whole lot less to navigate (no stories or ads, to BeReal’s credit), but the app is, unequivocally, merely another version of social media in which users can spend even more time on their screens comparing and contrasting, commenting and liking.
Wrap-up
In an attempt to attack a very real problem that affects people’s mental health – the inundation of perfectly filtered, curated posts on social media, warping our perception of reality – BeReal has merely exacerbated the larger problem at hand, which is that users have yet another reason to pick up their phones throughout the day to see what their friends are doing. Even worse, it’s done so by proclaiming that they simply aren’t like the other platforms, when, as we’ve seen, it’s a different side of the same coin.
Downloading BeReal as a means of engaging in a more authentic version of social media is analogous to someone who wants to lose weight, and starts by purchasing “low-fat” products; or perhaps to someone buying makeup that promises to make them look younger, or trying a new shampoo that promises to give your hair more volume… or, or, or.
“Join us! No bullshit here!”
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