By Julia Atencio

With a carefully curated collection of photos, Jasmine’s Instagram profile boasts over 1,000 followers. The high school senior’s time seems occupied with dances, parties, and vacations. Highlighted in hues of blues and pinks, the 12 selected photos on Jasmine’s largest social media account embodies the dream life for an  American teenager. “I’ve grown to post for myself, and I usually do it after any major event that happens”. Jasmine tells me that this doesn’t accurately reflect her day-to-day schedule, “apps like BeReal are more relatable because it is normalized to post pictures from your bed or doing normal things”. 

BeReal exploded in popularity over the summer, and the app is currently ranked at number 5 on the Apps Store “Social Networking” list, surpassing the likes of Discord and Life360. At a random time of the day, there’s a two minute window in which a user posts whatever they’re doing at that moment. The posts are formatted similar to a Facetime call, a photo taken on the back-facing camera and a smaller photo at the top right corner taken from the front-facing camera.  Users can only interact with one another by commenting or using Realmojis, small selfies reacting to the BeReal that adorn the bottom of the post. It’s described by top reviewers as “Instagram but without the toxicity”. Now, BeReal has become a global phenomenon with jokes reaching every corner of the internet and having a dedicated skit on SNL. The younger generations have fully embraced this fresh, authentic concept. 

The company’s good intentions, however, have been washed away by users' shallow desires. Many have taken to other social media platforms, most noticeably TikTok, to brag about their BeReals or have admitted to waiting several hours after the deadline to post something more interesting. This led me and many others to wonder: is it possible for social media to be authentic?

BeReal might be the turning point of authenticity in popular culture. Other social media applications are beginning to capitalize on the rising success of BeReal. TikTok, for example, has launched a similar feature called “Tiktok Now”, the same concept, but in a video format. The issue with this concept, however, lies in its entertainment value. For Jasmine, her Tiktok and Instagram screentime far exceeds the mere minutes that she spends on BeReal in a singular week. The new app may be refreshing and innovative, but I project that it’s popularity will wane as we enter into 2023. BeReal rides off of the emergence of a new trend of aesthetics that began popping up in other social media platforms. Most notably seen on Instagram, casual posts and “photo dumps” create an illusion of an effortless lifestyle. 

A similar thing can be said about BeReal, too. Users can create a performance of naturalness in their posts under the guise of the app’s overarching theme and mission. Are the posts of hanging out with friends or walking along a city’s streets authentic? Did the person who posted of them dancing at a party think of how awesome it would be if their BeReal notification went off at that exact moment? The lines of reality began to blur as I found myself doubting the authenticity of my friends' posts. In defense of the app however, BeReal does include other features that help authenticate the post. For example, one could quickly see how many retakes a user has done for their post or how late after the deadline they posted. I still don’t think this is enough to prevent the inevitable, however. 

Any social media platform has been inherently manufactured to make a performance out of your life. This is especially true once one begins adding people on an app that they don’t know as well, and suddenly the level of comfortability to be yourself is lessened because a space has been created in which it’s just another way for near strangers to see and judge your life. If BeReal was an exclusive experience where there was a cap on the number of friends you could add,  I think that there would be longer lasting success. If people you don’t know well are given an outlet to peer into your day-to-day life, it’s natural to take a photo from the most flattering angle and focus on the most interesting aspect from your surroundings.

Will this trend of “artificial realness” be a lasting movement on social media? For now, relatability and authenticity are what drives the success of emerging social media “influencers” and is a tool to keep mainstream celebrities from hot water. A-listers like Kendall Jenner and Bella Hadid have frequently taken part in the casual Instagram wave and are propellers of the movement. Providing an illusion of daily effortlessness propels their brands as models and nepotism “babies” without explicitly flaunting their wealthy lifestyle. “Being real” isn’t doing your taxes on the kitchen table, cleaning the litter box, or scrubbing dirty pans from the night before. To these high profile celebrities (and subsequently to everyone else), “Being real” is now being perfect. This casual instagram campaign has evolved into showing one’s life eating healthy-looking breakfasts, doing yoga in a pristine living room, walking the dog in matching Lululemon workout attire, and productively managing work assignments. These posts aren’t meant to display a rich style-of-living. Their purpose is to make their life appear attainable to the masses. 

BeReal is prideful of their anti-influencer concept, bragging in their “Warning”  section by saying, “BeReal won’t make you famous. If you want to become an influencer you can stay on Tiktok and Instagram”. This is largely why we haven’t seen big-name actresses, singers, models, and politicians use this new form of social media. They suddenly become another small fish in an ocean of small fish. I predict that we will see BeReal’s idea be implemented into other applications like Instagram and Twitter like how it was on Tiktok and it will be popular among “influencers”. It can become another tool to create an illusion of authenticity and make their daily schedule appear to be penciled in only with parties, galas, and nights out in 5 star restaurants and hotels. Bella Hadid can make her life seem unattainable again, but when she posts in her $200 pajama set in the covers from a high end resort in some tropical island, we can’t help but hope our lives can look like that in 10 years.

Jasmine admits that she’s broken away from using BeReal and prefers to post her most personable content on a spam account that is only followed by her closest friends. “I use [my spam account] to post less serious photos and personal stuff because my main [account] is what I want people to think my life is”.  For her, myself, and many others my age it’s difficult to be comfortable posting regular daily activities on a platform for hundreds of people. I think overcoming that fear won’t eliminate the ingrained idea that posting personal things on “main accounts”, or accounts dedicated to one’s best photos, is inappropriate. There is a direct correlation between followers and authenticity, the more you have, the less you become. BeReal is further proof of society’s rejection for realness, we want to see the artificial, but only if you present it as authentic.