[imagesource: Elise Wrabetz / NBC News]

The most downloaded social media app on the Apple App Store (in the US) is somewhat of an anti-social app, really, asking users to relish in the lowlights more than the highlights.

The usual culprits (Instagram and TikTok) have become notoriously overproduced and hyper-curated, pitting connection against content creation.

These platforms may have started out with the intention to keep friends far and wide well connected, but they have morphed into something a lot more impersonal, performative, and pressure-filled.

That’s where BeReal has found its edge among the new generation of social media users, such as Gen Zs starved for meaningful connections with friends.

BeReal thus focuses on authenticity and less on making people catch FOMO or grow a following – or as The Guardian phrases it, it “prioritises intimacy over infamy”:

Image: Apple App Store

Launched in 2019 by French entrepreneurs Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau, the app asks users to post unvarnished glimpses of their everyday lives during a constantly changing two-minute window each day.

The posts are photos showing one image from the front-facing camera and another from the back-facing camera, which is supposed to ensure that the user posts whatever they’re doing at the moment, no matter how unglamorous and unkempt.

Users can take their photos later, but can’t see their friends’ content until they’ve posted theirs themselves.

If everyone is really being real here, then, users should make sure to post as they are prompted, as they truly are in the moment, and not at a time when they know they will be living a highlight.

I can see how this will be morphed into making up appearances once again, but anyway:

Currently the No 1 social networking app in the Apple App Store in the US, BeReal is growing rapidly. The vast majority of its lifetime 28m downloads happened this year according to the Business of Apps. Its popularity is radiating out beyond the college students that first jumped on board, thanks, in part, to an ambassador programme and payments for signing up.

Image: Errin Mathieson; Ben Goggin / NBC News; BeReal.

With TikTok and Instagram both expanding beyond social media’s original remit, Kristin Merrilees, a 20-year-old New Yorker, says BeReal is capturing that unfulfilled urge to connect with friends throughout the day.

While Instagram is aiming to help its creators reach a wider audience, BeReal says it won’t help people become influencers:

Olivia Bamford, 23, from Derbyshire, says she stopped using Instagram because she felt that other people’s content would always be better than her own. Merrilees and [23-year-old Deborah] Mackenzie say they still use Instagram to share content with friends, but its main purpose is to showcase major events or for photo dumps rounding up the month’s highlights.

“It’s not exactly a platform where you can grow a following, but that’s sort of the point,” says Merrilees.

As much as new apps like BeReal are claiming to opt-out of the attention economy, saying they will shun ads for alternative business models, et cetera, one should still be wary.

Mackenzie hit the nail on the head, noting, “It’s just another thing to keep reminding you to get on your phone.”

[source:guardian]