Why BeReal Won't Last

It's time to BeReal!, my phone notifies me. Randomly, once a day, all BeReal users get the same warning, at the same instant. Then, with two minutes on the timer, people rush to capture their BeReal. I have seen the sheer panic on people's faces, rushing to their friends to get the perfect shot.

BeReal is an app that gives you two minutes to take a picture, using both the front and back cameras together, to give your followers a glimpse of what you are doing at that exact moment. Only once you post your picture, can you see what your friends have posted.

This app blew up in the early summertime. In the age of the “casual Instagram”, the concept makes total sense. People are sick of curated feeds, flooded with perfectly posed and edited posts. Every social media platform seems to be embracing candid, casual, authentic posts, so BeReal seems like the perfect concept. But how real are we really being? As the app grows in popularity, there are already many different ways to avoid the trap of only having two minutes to craft the perfect post.

Despite all their efforts, personally, my BeReal is almost never an authentic candid. When the notification goes off, my heart skips a beat. I scramble to fix my hair and find the perfect spot to take. I make sure everything fits the balance of looking good, but not too planned. I strive to achieve the careless aesthetic, which really takes a lot of care. If my picture is not right, I simply do not post, literally defeating the entire purpose of the app. To ensure spontaneity, BeReal makes the number of retakes per picture visible, which discourages users from taking too many retakes. Many users would rather not post at all than have a post that reveals that they took seven retakes; this would be shameful to their apparent realness.

While the concept of the app is nice, it is inherently a bit boring. Seeing pictures of your friends wearing a messy bun while watching TV is definitely not exciting. Therefore, I would understand if BeReal is a fad and not a long lasting social media platform. For now, I will continue using the app, but only time will tell.