Due to the intensive use of internet networks and social media, you share a lot with friends, acquaintances and complete strangers. But is what people reveal on the internet really authentic? The new BeReal app aims to solve this problem by taking spontaneous photos within a set time frame.
Not long ago, Instagram was heavily criticized for reflecting unattainable ideals of beauty on the platform. Some users felt left out and depressed consuming these publicly shared photos that exude perfection. The founders of BeReal app therefore speak of an attempt to create an authentic create social media. With their app, they encourage users to show their friends who they are.
BeReal wants to be unaffected and real
The beauty of social media is that anyone can communicate with anyone and share moments freely. This creates space for staging, photos are often deliberately selected for a post. There are also many photo retouching programs and precise instructions and poses to present yourself as well as possible. Many posts are not genuine and authentic as a result.
BeReal takes up this principle of sharing moments, but wants to bring back the reality and the real me of the users. What fits better than a spontaneous photo? The BeReal app works similarly to Instagram, but differs in important ways. This is how the app chooses the time when photos are posted. The app wants to encourage users to take more spontaneous photos. And this is how it works: Users receive a notification via the app that they can publish a post within the next two minutes. You can then take an impromptu picture and post it via the app. If you don’t post anything, you’ll get a “Late” on the late photo. This allows everyone to see whether the photo is authentic or was taken with a delay.
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Two-camera principle within the app
The BeReal app reports with these time windows daily in the notifications. If users then take a photo for their post, the app first accesses the rear camera of the smartphone. This is intended to create a photo of the environment in which the user is currently located. The actual selfie can then be taken with the front camera. The selfie is inserted into the surrounding image and posted on your own profile. If desired, the resulting BeReal photo can only be shared in the so-called “Friends” channel or published in the public Discovery channel.
Similar to other social media, you add people to your profile as “friends”. The interesting thing is that all “friends” are prompted to take a picture at the same time. But if you look around the public Discovery channel, you can also add complete strangers as friends. The pictures taken by request result in a kind of diary with exact time and place. So you can see very well what you did when, where and with whom. You can also see what “friends” were doing at the same time. Users can react to the posts with a Realmoji, i.e. a portrait photo with which a selected emotion is shown.
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Is the BeReal concept convincing?
In fact, the BeReal app gives very authentic insights into the lives of people you are connected to as well as people you don’t know. The inhibition threshold for the posts seems to be rather low and users diligently share everything that comes in front of the lens. When scrolling through the app, however, it is noticeable that most of the public posts were posted too late. So there seems to be enough situations where users don’t want to take or post a photo within two minutes. In addition, it is questionable whether you would like to share everything you are doing every day when asked. Although you can switch off the location of the photo, the app gives very personal and private insights in the long run.
BeReal also creates a constant interaction with the notifications that encourage users to post. This long-term interaction can theoretically be addictive, and it’s real money in the social media space. Constant use means active users. In addition, the idea is not entirely new, because Instagram stories or TikTok videos also allow spontaneous videos to be shared. However, the idea of the authentic photos is a very good one and could help temper the perfectionist narcissism of social media. However, you have to ignore the notifications from time to time.