BeReal is a social media platform that markets itself as “A new and unique way to discover who your friends really are in their daily life.” The app sends out a notification when it’s “Time to Bereal,” giving members two minutes to post what they are doing from the front and back camera in order to view the pictures their friends have posted. The app strives to be an alternative to the larger social media platforms that instil comparison and prioritise influence over connection. The authentic ethos drives BeReal towards more spontaneous, candid photos. Yet does this unfiltered and genuine social media achieve what it set out to do— be real?
When talking with my friends about their opinions of the app and their personal responses to it, there seemed to be a common thread of comparison – my friends and I found ourselves comparing our everyday life with everyone else’s. This once unfiltered, raw documentation of who I ‘really was in my daily life’ became filtered through the lens of comparison. I had begun to curate the image I wanted people to see, always doing something interesting, living up to their expectations, and my own. This curated image echoed the same one I had established on my other social media platforms, such as Instagram, Facebook, Snapchat and VSCO.
BeReal reached number one on Apple’s App Store in July of 2022, boasting around 21.6 million users in July. This exponential reach to millions of consumers warrants a closer look into its role in everyday life. Despite the insistence on genuine, unplanned, and unfiltered photos, the app allows for the curation and staging of shots. Photos can be taken later in the day, for the convenience of those who want to wait for something more interesting to photograph and swiping out of the app allows for multiple photos to be taken without notifying the viewers. Both of these defects compromise the mission of the app and breed comparison and curation. The growing trend of posting BeReal photos on Instagram also establishes standards of comparison within the app – its original desire to separate itself from the curation and comparison of other social media platforms has dissolved.
Aside from the inability of the app to mandate genuine photos, despite its efforts, the mission itself is flawed. In establishing the fact that BeReals can be fake and people can ‘cheat’ it simultaneously cements BeReal’ inherently comparative ideology. The app breeds an unhealthy competition of aesthetics at every moment. As many other social media platforms have proved, an app once meant to connect people can easily impose competition and blur the line between aesthetic and ‘real’ life. I love Pinterest and aesthetics as much as the next person, but where is the line drawn between curating an aesthetic life and living one? Discovering who your friends are in their everyday life should be a personal and in-person experience rather than one that is filtered and online.
Between staging photos, curating aesthetics, and enforcing competition, Bereal has failed to deliver on its mission. The result is yet another social media platform that separates individuals by positioning our lives within the lens of competition. Can anyone ‘be real’ filtered through the lens of comparison and aesthetics?