It’s Monday, it’s after 11 p.m., I’m sleepy and the BeReal IS NOT OUT YET! I have been using this social network since August of this year and I have become this monster who needs to hear the notification of the so-called “BeReal time” to feel that his day is over.
A little exaggerated yes I am. In fact, my life hasn’t changed at all, but it’s true that every day I have this feeling of anticipation in my chest, of not wanting to miss the BeReal moment. That’s what they call FOMO (Fear of missing something), or the fear of missing out.
And that’s how I start the week. When the notification comes, there’s nothing to shoot but the TV with the episode of “The Rings of Power” and the couch. If BeReal has anything, it’s that everyone finally sees how boring other people’s lives are. Fortunately.
During this week, I have documented everything that I have experienced with this applicationmy impressions, the technical failures, and the expectations generated by this new social network in exponential growth.
But what is BeReal?
Once a day, the application notifies that a two-minute window is open to post a photo with the rear camera and another with the front camera. You can only post one photo per day and it is only possible to see the images of others if you also participate. Also, this applicationwhich doesn’t have many more functions, doesn’t allow the use of filters.
Although it’s focused on following a small circle of friends (it doesn’t even let you view each account’s followers), there’s the “Discoverywhere the most Random enough to Random. Random BeReals of random people doing random things.
In this Twitter account you can follow some of the most hilarious and crazy BeReal:
— Best BeReals (@Bestbereals)
October 24, 2022
Under the motto “Your friends for real(Your Real Friends) and the premise of creating “a new and unique way to find out who your friends really are in their daily lives”, Alexis Barreyat, a former GoPro employee, and Kevin Perreau launched this new application on the market . December 2019.
According Apptopiait was only in 2022, more precisely in August, that it became the application most downloaded non game related iOS In the whole world.
What caught me at BeReal?
On Tuesday the notification went off so late I was already asleep and by the time I took the photo on Wednesday morning there was only half an hour between it and Be real which corresponded to this day. So Tuesday and Wednesday, the only difference for me was that my pink glitter breakfast cup had moved from my living room to my telecommuting table. Nothingness, non-action, is for me what appeals to me the most.
In your account section you can see all photos by days
BeReal is “the anti-social network” because it breaks with everything that social networks have brought us so far: entertainment content, information, radiation (the pleasure of being popular) and this feeling of comfort to show the best of oneself. And yet it has the great essence of what a social network is: the constant need to enter it every time you receive a notification that someone has posted a BeReal.
It also has a sense of constant play, seeing what others are doing, posting what is so forbidden that you eat or guilty pleasure of netflix what you watch and see how people react. This complicity that in order for you to see what your friends are doing, you also have to expose yourself. It’s funny because in the end everyone is much more ugly and boring than when they upload a photo to Instagram.
Moreover, if the immersion in the BeReal experience is total, you can see parts of the lives of people with whom you feel identified (or horrified). It’s the window to see what they eat, how they work, what they play, or just who that person you know usually hangs out with, but not much. Try to escape from staleo and the posture of Instagram, you gossip into the most personal life of those around you.
Another aspect of BeReal that makes me feel good is that you decide who sees your images, if only your friends or you want to share them with the world. And that finally (at least for now), this application It’s not about being popular, getting more likes, more followers and more projection. It’s just you in your pajamas uploading a photo of your plants with a monumental cold (my Thursday).
Can you cheat?
So far, it feels like an idyllic app where everyone signs that authenticity contract, to be as real as possible and, unsurprisingly, that’s usually not the case. The truth is that if you take more than two minutes from the moment the notification goes out to take the photo, the only “penalty” of the application is that it marks the photo as a “late” and at the top of the post it appears how long you are late for BeReal.
At the top appears the hour of the deceased
So many people wait for the time of day when they are doing something interesting to take the picture. For me, it loses a bit of its essence, but it also gives you the opportunity to joke around with your friends, and isn’t that fun?
What are the bugs of BeReal?
If you use an Android mobile, you will have already realized that this application is not designed precisely for this operating system. By using it, it is possible to identify several design issues that make the application very uncomfortable to use.
Unlike iOS, it’s not possible to see friend requests, so someone may have sent you a request and you’re ignoring that person who just wants to comment on stupid photos with you. For someone with an ambassador complex, it’s a bit stressful.
Friend request screen on an iPhone
Also, although a list of “contacts in BeReal” and another of “suggestions of friends” appear when you try to add someone, the tab does not change, so it seems that it has not not worked. This is a fairly common complaint from those who are new to this social network.
Add tab on Android keeps showing even if you have already added it
It is also confusing to find friends. A few days ago, a friend had to go to another social network to let her know that she was already on BeReal because no one could find her! In this sense, we could say that this application is very unintuitive. No one is perfect, but the development team of the application you should try your guess for those of us who don’t have iPhones. “Alone” we are the 72.2% Of the market.
Another interesting aspect of BeReal concerns the security risks which raises In this line, Expansion goes through some of them, like, for example, the limit of exposing sensitive information, places or very personal details that could be misused (for example, stalkers) and, above all, the absence content control for hate speech, child sexual abuse material and other inappropriate content.
Unlike other social networks, although there is an option to report content, the company delegates all responsibility to those using the app to control what happens there.
At the top of the image there are three dots, clicking this screen appears
BeReal only offers these two options for reporting.
Is it a fad?
In 2012, when Instagram came out, it was hard to imagine that this social network would change entertainment and communication as we know it. Therefore, estimating whether BeReal will remain in our daily life in this first rush is very complex.
Especially because it is not that this company is precisely very transparent in terms of figures. Recently, the creators assured in an email to Gizmodo that what “matters” now is “creating the best product” (maybe they should read this article) so “metrics, fundraising, ratings, rankings, etc. they are not what we want to highlight, so we won’t share them for now. All BeReal figures on the Internet are… estimates.”
Some of these estimates are offered by detection tower which guarantees that this year alone it has had some 53 million downloads. However, in the third quarter of 2022, only 9% of those who installed the app on their Android use it daily. Without data from iOS devices, the comparison leaves a lot to be desired if we take into account that on Instagram it rises to 39% and on TikTok to 29%.
On Friday BeReal catches me working, as most of the time I upload a photo of my cat because I refuse to upload the computer screen again. And it is that sometimes, only sometimes, the application becomes repetitive, and if it’s not the application, it’s my life. Faced with this hard life lesson of which I refuse to be the only apprentice, I wonder, what if there was an arc of interest in this social network with a point where its use declines?
There is no doubt that the idea of spontaneity has been appreciated, it is a fact, and, moreover, this application has arrived at a time of crisis of authenticity of other social networks such as Instagram and ICT Tac. In fact, the latter has already integrated a function which is a carbon copy, TikTok now.
PHOTO: TikTok Now
Additionally, information is starting to appear about celebrities who are already using BeReal, and part of the game is finding them and getting them to follow you. It is my dear Rosalie which I had already mentioned at the time, but there is also Natalia Lacunza or Ashley Graham.
It’s Saturday and the notification hasn’t come out yet, I hope it surprises me at dinner with friends, yes people and yes, in front of my house. It’s hard to stick to BeReal rules and not look like a REAL sucker. (Mental note: don’t write any more reviews).
If you ask me if BeReal is worth it, it’s a resounding yes, you laugh a lot with (of) your friends, and then it’s a fantastic song to get out of the glasses. When we start to get tired celebrities, to be announced in one out of three storiesthis social network takes up the spirit of the beginnings of Instagram: to be a window on the personal life of anonymous people.
As to whether it is as authentic as its creators prophesy, we have already seen that this is not always the case. But breaking authenticity even once in a while, isn’t that already part of our lives?
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