As consistently seen, social medias come and go with new ones competing to replace the long-standing ones such as Snapchat and Instagram. A good example of this is the 2020 release of the popular app BeReal.
This app was a hit, especially with the pandemic going on. It helped to connect people during a really distant and weird time. Most important to this apps background is the fact that it was created in an effort for people to literally “Be Real” on social media by taking a picture as soon as the timer went off no matter what you were doing in the moment.
Although I respect the effort to stray from the typical lack of “realness” often seen in the media, especially places like Instagram, I am not a big social media user and this app at first just seemed like another thing to add to my to-do list that I did not really care about.
It was not until school went back into full time, in person, and maskless, when I reunited with all of my friends and peers, that I was convinced to download the app. Everyone was on it, even my grown Aunts (and other people of that sort). My friends literally forced me to try it, and honestly the peer pressure was so strong that I downloaded it so quickly.
At first, I can admit, I was having fun.
Soon enough though, this app became to me like what other social medias were, consuming while being so unimportant. I deleted it off my phone and added it to the list of apps I never need again. Here’s why:
1. The pressure to “be real”
This reason goes multiple ways. There was so much pressure to be authentic and real while at the same time so much pressure to be cool and have a fun life. I often felt like when the timer went off, I wasn’t actually doing anything cool which made me feel like a loser for no good reason. It made me anxious to betray the whole concept of the app and “post late” when I knew I would be doing something worth posting. It was making me feel exactly how it projected not to.
Not to mention, the timer really got my heart racing and anxiety going for no reason.
2. I really enjoy my privacy
I have always chosen to live a private, quiet, soft-launch everything sort of life. There were times the timer went off and I just really did not feel like showing basically my entire school what I was doing or where I was. I could either push through my discomfort and do it anyway, put in an unnecessary amount of effort to change my reality or pose in a way that one couldn’t really tell, or just not post and then get taunted by the apps notifications and my friends for being late again (since I frequently was). I know that this wouldn’t really matter to some people, but like I said, it’s just the kind of person I am.
3. App drawbacks
There were some things about the app I just did not really like either. A lot of the time the timer would go off at like 11pm when I was already asleep. LAME! I would see it the next day and think about the fact the apps main audience is teenagers who have school the next day, so why are they sending the notification at 11:38pm? Half the month was blank or late from times the notification just went off when I was sound asleep. Sure some people are night owls, but it made the experience less fun for me often.
I also did not really like the reaction feature. People would react to everything like they were snapping someone back, just a plain face or random photo. I just thought, “how pointless and time consuming!” That might just be my frequent dislike for social media talking. It also made me feel anxious because I was like “who is gonna be upset with me if I don’t react to their photo,” which I never wanted to do.
Conclusion
As I projected from the very beginning, before I was forced to download the app by the pressures of my friends and my easiness to submit to the latest trend, I just really did not see the point in owning this app. After owning, I still really did not see it. I know some people have a lot of fun, but it just racked up my screen time, made me feel anxious or uneasy, and sometimes made my life feel lame. I had to drop it.
At this time, I am not really even sure how popular the app is anymore, or how many people are still using it, but I am sure there are others like me who also cut it out of their lives.
This definitely is not to say that the app is horrible and you should delete it off your phone, it is purely due to the type of person I am that I did not mesh with it. I really love that my friends have fun doing it, as well as other people around me, but also while knowing that it just isn’t for me.
Sorry BeReal, I am just… being real.