Is BeReal Really About Being Real?
By Sienna Bevan (Staff Writer)
It’s 3:27 PM on a Sunday afternoon. You are doing nothing in a dirty, poorly lit room. With messed up mascara, Hot Cheeto dust on your cheeks and all, you look objectively hideous. A notification appears on your phone with two caution emojis: “Time to BeReal.” With two minutes on the clock and no urge whatsoever to capture your “real life” on camera, what do you do?
Although the social media app BeReal has been around since 2019, most have only heard of it recently. Unlike other social media platforms, BeReal doesn’t have a permanent feed. Your “friends” are able to see your BeReal for the day only after they have posted theirs, and it disappears by the next daily notification. There is no follower, friend, or even like count in the app. It also simultaneously takes pictures with both the front and back cameras to reveal what you are really doing. Now that the app’s popularity has enormously spiked, practically every teenager has it. Those who have BeReal know that the photo is meant to be taken within the first two minutes of the notification. However, it has progressed so that many users timeout taking their BeReal to highlight the best part of their day, contradicting the app’s purpose. BeReal was meant to be about being candid, but now it isn’t.
BeReal user Marina Strube (’24) noted that sometimes she isn’t “real,” waiting for ideal times to take her BeReal.
“...it seems like there’s more pressure to have it [BeReal] seem like other social media apps, like Instagram, and there's also more pressure to seem like your life is perfect,” Strube said.
Instagram, one of the most popular social media platforms, is the epitome of not real. Many users meticulously curate their posts to make themselves aesthetically pleasing, displaying an inaccurate representation of their lives. BeReal was created because of this; to offer an alternative to typical social media. The ultimate fear however, is that BeReal is eventually going to become like Instagram. Social media in general is dangerous enough for teens as it is, especially now, with it becoming less and less authentic. Not only does it cause insecurities, but a false sense of reality. What does it say about society and social media in general when there is the need to create an app simply about “being real?”
Instagram user Lauren Forsyth (’23) shares her concerns about social media’s impact on mental health.
“It has a very bad impact on mental health just because you’re seeing what people want you to see. In reality no one’s life is perfect like that, that’s just what everyone wants you to think,” Forsyth said.
Although BeReal may be the “realest” form of social media yet, it has the potential to become dangerous. It could easily become just another social media app where people curate their feeds into a highlight reel of life. We have gotten to the point of ingenuity on social media where we need an app to tell us to “be real.” And it is still not working. We need to start “being real” on social media, rather than only presenting ourselves how we want to be perceived.
