“Wait, I need to do my BeReal!” This phrase interrupted enough conversations with friends over the past few weeks that it convinced me to download the app for myself.
For the unfamiliar, BeReal is an emerging social media platform that prompts users at a different, randomly chosen time each day to take a candid snapshot. You get two minutes to pose once you receive the notification; the app captures the view from your phone’s front and back cameras, then shares the results with your friends. After my first day using it, I was hooked. My roommates and I sat over dinner giggling at the candid situations in which the app caught our friends at 8:19 p.m.: stuck in the rain, scrambling eggs, and sporting shampoo mohawks included.
We’re not alone—since its launch in December 2019, the number of BeReal’s monthly active users has grown 315%, year to date. It’s been one of the 10 most downloaded free social networking apps for iPhones nearly every day this month, according to NBC News.
But the concept of being real on social media isn’t revolutionary. On Instagram, so-called casual photo dumps currently dominate the platform, while celebrity influencers demonstrate increasingly painful attempts at appearing relatable. It’s on-trend to seem down-to-earth on social media, but you don’t need a blue check mark to know the levels of prep, repositioning, and editing that go into even the most convincing “candid” shots.
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BeReal is only the latest in a long string of trending attempts to escape the pressures of social media…via social media. Apps like HujiFilm and David’s Disposables became available as a way to mimic pre-iPhone photography by revoking the ability to immediately examine and edit photos. And as TikTok first gained popularity, it was praised as a more authentic platform for users to be—and look like—themselves. However, even TikTok has beauty filters. These trends point to the same conclusion: We’re exhausted by the obligations dominant social media platforms enforce to retake, retouch, and reinvent ourselves every time we want to post.
Because BeReal is so limiting, it becomes freeing. The app completely removes the option to plan for the perfect shot, alter our appearances and environments for camera readiness, or select the best from countless, nearly identical takes. There are no beauty filters or vintage effects. Just you, amicably ambushed in your real space.
If you’re lucky, the app might catch you in time for a perfectly aesthetic cocktail clink, or belting along at a music festival. But most days you’ll be asked to share a photo of yourself staring at computer, sweating on the treadmill, or meandering through the grocery store. The beauty is that it’ll make you realize everyone else’s lives can be just as tedious as yours.
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Ironically, my BeReal feed has become the least mundane of all the social media platforms I use. It’s refreshing to see snapshots of even my most glamorous friends waiting around at the laundromat. After my plans to study abroad were canceled due to the pandemic, my FOMO has been at an all-time high this semester. With half of my friends currently gallivanting overseas, my Instagram feed looks like a saturated travel brochure. My first week on BeReal assured me: They still have homework and hangovers too. What BeReal photos may lack in content and quality, they make up for in authenticity. The app intentionally highlights the moments we’d never deem post-worthy and reminds us daily that there’s more to life than the highlights. For everyone.
By now we’re aware that most social media paints wildly inaccurate portrayals of people’s lives—because most of us are participants in the charade. Still, it’s easy to fall into the trap of believing that your friends are leading far more interesting lives than yours when only glimpses of their best moments, posed and polished, are made accessible.
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I’m not claiming BeReal has cured my ingrained social media vanity. I still wish my teeth looked half a shade whiter for an Instagram post I captioned “casual Friday,” but I didn’t mind when BeReal caught me in foils at the hair salon. Paradoxical, maybe, but so is the concept of a shiny new app coming to rescue us from our social media fatigue. All I know is: Being real for the last week has made me feel better. I plan to make it a habit.
Grace McCarty is a writer and student based in New York.
