BeReal: The most authentic of social networks

After years of perfection delivered by Instagram influencers, coupled with a pandemic that pushed our entire lives online along with a surge in sweatpants, we have been craving authenticity for awhile.

And while TikTok meets that need in many ways, it’s still a platform that enables as much editing as one can stand, plus filters that can morph a person’s appearance in all sorts of ways.

Enter BeReal, a new social media app from France that made its debut in 2020 and exploded early in 2022. With almost 3 million active daily users, BeReal is the most authentic of social media apps. In fact, BeReal enforces a level of authenticity through its user experience that, one might say, is relieving. There is zero editing and no filters. It’s just, well, you, in the moment.

While BeReal is primarily used by Gen Z, it has a decent following of Millennials. The app, which has received $36 million in funding (partially from Andreessen Horowitz VC) has reportedly been using the same tactics that Facebook used by targeting universities to gain a following.

Here’s how BeReal works:

• Every day, users received a random notification to post.
• Users are asked to create a post — one post — within two minutes of notification. (That said, you can post later, to an extent.)
• You must post a photo to see your friends’ photos.
• You can comment and react to photos but you can not like photos.
• And, most interestingly, the image you post is not only the photo you took, but also you taking the photo.

This last feature is by far the most fascinating. The first time I created a post it actually took me off guard, and I’ve heard the same from other users. It puts the creator in the post — but as a secondary element. And by capturing both sides of the situation, it creates context and presence in a way that one-way imaging does not.

It also mandates authenticity. Hair and make up not done? Ring light not set up? Too bad. It’s time to post. In this way BeReal is the equivalent of going to the grocery store in your pj’s on a Saturday night for a pint of ice cream. It’s not glamorous, but it’s real. And quite honestly, it’s a breath of fresh air in a space that can command perfection.

Also of interest is its random notification. BeReal does not care if you are doing something exciting or mundane. When it’s time to post, it’s time to post. In this way, it embodies Dell Upton’s theory of the the “extraordinary of the everyday.” Every moment is worthy of publication because every moment is a lived experience.

In this way, BeReal feels extremely intimate, which may limit the size of user networks for the positive. The experience feels right for your closest friends but perhaps a bit odd for your extended network. Personally, I have more than 900 “friends” on Facebook. On BeReal, that number will likely be closer to 150, reflective of Dunbar’s number, the suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships, according to anthropologist Robin Dunbar. BeReal may not be the space for everyone you’ve ever met —but it might be the space for people who you actually know.

It’s hard to say if BeReal will create enough interest or involvement to maintain its growth. I like to think of new social technology as a grand experiment in which we collectively learn a new behavior. And if there’s one thing we may learn from BeReal, it’s that it’s ok to not be perfect—and that, in fact, there may be more joy in true authenticity than we thought.