New ways of human connection and keeping up with your people, why this is the perfect app for busy friends and bored people.
BeReal, a French app developed by Alexis Barreyat, allows you to capture moments of everyday life and share this unpolished version of our realities with friends. As soon as your account is set up, your friends are invited, and your notification settings are on, your journey toward authentic connection begins. At a different time every day, a 2-minute timer prompts you to share a picture of yourself and what you are doing at that moment. While there is an option to retake these photos, a two-minute timer makes it hard to get your picture “insta-perfect”.
So, what’s the big deal? Another photo-sharing app to take up space on your phone! Yeah, this does not seem like something to throw a party over. But, the concept, appeal and potential of “BeReal” are what is most important in this conversation. While the app itself is basic, the premise of sharing bare, unfiltered and unpolished photos of yourself and what you are doing at any point is a powerful action in today’s world of heavily edited and disingenuous social media.
First, it promotes awareness of your surroundings and actions. Often, life feels long and monotonous, and the only excitement in our personal lives are notifications we get from social media apps. However, BeReal prompts you to look at your surroundings; What are you doing? Who are you with? How do you feel? These daily check-ins can help one ground themselves in emotionally taxing and confusing times in which one’s attention and energy are spread thin. Furthermore, because these pictures are being sent to friends, it allows us to feel safe with sending our unfiltered appearances and actions. Whether you are crying, laughing or farting, BeReal is bound to capture these moments and share them with your friends. This allows you to authentically get to know each other better.
BeReal also helps to maintain relationships between busy friends. Those in university or who work will understand that scheduling time to speak to your friends and family can feel impossible. BeReal offers fast, intimate and safe connections between people. You get to peek into the daily lives of your loved ones and see their faces, practically in real-time.
The app, which has recently gained massive popularity, allows us to connect with our friends and romanticise the daily and sometimes mundane aspects of our lives, as well as appreciate the suddenly exciting times. Taking a picture of yourself in the moment every day makes activities which usually bore – like writing essays, replying to emails or cooking dinner seem exciting – like something you can and want to share. And if BeReal catches you on an exciting day, you get to capture these moments and appreciate their excitement and authenticity of them.
So, there you have it – BeReal is appealing for its main M.O; authentic, human connection. It is what most of us desire – to be seen, heard and feel safe with people even in our most boring and casual moments. BeReal offers an opportunity for unfiltered connection with your people every day.