LET'S BE REAL ABOUT BEREAL

BY JULIA KINDEL

BeReal is a relatively new app released in 2020 as a response to the heavily-filtered and unrealistic expectations of modern social media. The app’s intent is to promote authenticity and make its users feel more comfortable sharing their real selves online. BeReal has a simple design compared to other social media platforms and is heavily picture-centered. However, BeReal’s main draw is its two-minute countdown to take two photos: one of themselves with the selfie camera and one of their surroundings with the main camera. BeReal notifies its users of the two-minute countdown to post their current activities, though this notification can appear at any time of the day, so users must stay alert.

Additionally, if a user posts after the allotted time, then their post is marked with how late they posted. This incentivizes more people to post on time in order to truly ‘be real.’ Also, when a user retakes their image, the amount of retakes is listed in the post, encouraging people to use their first take to stay true to themselves.

Regardless, BeReal’s user base has heavily decreased from a peak of 15 million users in October 2022 to 6 million users, a drop of 61%. It appears that BeReal’s attractiveness to young audiences has died down significantly, and it has already passed through Gen Z’s short-trending cycle. This is unfortunate, as the purpose behind the app was positive and meant to benefit young people who were over-exposed to filters and photo-editing on other social media platforms. Furthermore, BeReal is desperately attempting to gain back audience engagement, which has decreased because of the way the app was designed. Since all of its users appear at the same time of the day, engagement for the rest of the day is extremely low. To combat this, BeReal released an extra feature called Bonus BeReal to try to attract more people to the app. This feature is only available to those who can post within the two-minute time limit, making the feature more exclusive to users.

Many students at NRHS continue to use BeReal, but many have slowed or even stopped their usage of the app. Alyssa Rudolph, a senior at NRHS, said, “Honestly, I stopped using BeReal because I would often forget to post. I think the app has a great concept, but it can be hard to find something interesting to post about every day.” This statement reflects the opinion of a large percentage of users, explaining why BeReal seems to be bleeding out in popularity.

The loss of interest from users can be attributed to people instinctively wanting to present themselves attractively on social media and ultimately accepting the artificiality of current social media. According to theguardian.com, “[BeReal] just added another demand for self-presentation, only this time, you had to pretend to be authentic once a day, instead of being comfortably inauthentic on an app like Instagram.” The fall of BeReal might have always been inevitable due to the nature of human beings, but it was fun while it lasted.