Since it gained widespread popularity in early 2022, the app BeReal has infiltrated the lives of its nearly 10 million daily users. The idea of the app is innocent and harmless, take a picture of whatever you are doing right when you get the daily notification; to share with your friends the possibly boring moments of your normal, daily life. There is no doubt that it is an enticing app idea, but in our technological day and age, are we able to be fully transparent online?
Social media has been a harmful environment since the dawn of its creation. Constant comparison to the lives of others, and criticism of your own is something impossible to avoid. We are urged to be the most perfect, put-together versions of ourselves online, and even in the display of being casual, it’s difficult to not tune in how you may be perceived by others. If you are in the very small percentage of people who can be fully transparent online, congratulations. But if you struggle with being genuine on social media, don’t worry; the internet was practically designed to make you feel bad about yourself, and then show you perfect people to then make us feel worse.
The objective of being relatable on social media is something people crave. We have moments when we are sick of seeing perfect cookie-cutter people, sharing all the extravagant things they do day to day. But are the people who claim to be showing relatable everyday content being 100% truthful? Personally, I think less harm comes from people like the Kardashians; most people know their lifestyle is very different from the average person’s. But what does the most harm are the people who build their personal brands off of relatability, yet stage all aspects of their life. For example, when creators share daily routines that are bizarre and impossible for the average person to complete day to day, it is very easy to beat yourself up for not doing enough, not being productive enough, etc.
Within the BeReal app, you can post later than when you get the notification. Does this feature defeat the purpose of the entire concept? The people who wait until they are doing something interesting miss the entire point of the app. The point is to capture the real, raw, messy and imperfect moments in your day. While I do not think BeReal is an extremely necessary thing, I think the concept is important. In this era of social media, we prepare most of the moments in our lives to be broadcasted, most of us aim for perfection; so it is important to embrace the real moments we have in life and not shame ourselves for not being perfect.