Opinion: BeReal Isn’t Real

“Let’s take a BeReal!” are some common words that you can expect to hear in the hallways right before a group of teenagers in front of you abruptly stop walking and take a photo of themselves. Since the beginning of 2022, millions of teenagers have been obsessed with the app BeReal. BeReal is an app where you’re supposed to take unfiltered photos of yourself, and whatever activity you’re doing at the moment. All around the school, you can see students taking pictures of themselves and their friends on the app. However, is it really an important social media app? 

BeReal differs from other social media apps in two main ways. You can’t use filters, and there is no private messaging function. The purpose of BeReal is to be able to show yourself in your true form, without the enhancement of filters that you see on other apps such as Instagram, Snapchat, and Tiktok. People too often compare themselves to celebrities, with loads of makeup, filters, professional cameras, and perfect poses. Being able to see people without filters is supposed to help them stay away from fake reality, and unfair comparisons and be real. However, I haven’t met one person who has BeReal and doesn’t have apps with filters such as Snapchat or Instagram. In reality, after someone takes a BeReal, they’ll probably log onto Snapchat, put on a dog filter and snap back all their friends. The concept of BeReal is extremely smart and unique, but it’s not enough to stop people from using filters on other apps. 

Along with this, its objective is to seem real and unique by distancing yourself from fake filters.  However, most people use the app simply because they don’t want to feel left out of the trend. Just like all the other social media apps, people become forced to download the app and use it every day. BeReal gives you two minutes daily to take a picture of yourself. Giving a short period of time makes the user feel pressured to open the app quickly. Instead of being a chill, unfiltered app, this part of it just seems stress-inducing and a ploy to make you a slave to one more social media app.

If BeReal were to truly change the norms of social media, and make users not use filters, then it would have to center itself around communication. However, it doesn’t have a private messaging function. People look at social media mostly for communication or entertainment. Although BeReal can be interesting, unless you’re a creep, staring at blank pictures of people for hours won’t really be too entertaining. On Instagram, you can see pictures of people, but also watch videos and message people privately. On Snapchat, you can see videos from creators, communicate through pictures, or just send chats without any pictures. TikTok is such a successful app because it’s mainly used for videos, but you can also message people privately.

All these apps have multiple things going for them that keep users glued to the apps for hours on end. BeReal doesn’t have much appeal to it, other than not losing your daily streak of snapping an unfiltered picture of yourself. The lack of endless interest will probably be the downfall of BeReal’s success. The idea of taking unfiltered pictures to remove the social pressure to look perfect 24/7 is definitely a smart one, but it could’ve been done differently. If BeReal wants to continue to thrive in the far future, it would have to implement videos and messaging aspects to the app. Not being able to use filters to communicate through means like a snap from Snapchat, would be perfect. Not using a filter on a funny short video would also be a great way to decrease social pressure. Or even just being able to privately text your friends, after you stalk a bunch of people’s daily BeReals, would be an improvement. Without more entertainment options, people are still going to spend more time on other social apps, and be exposed to fake, filtered reality, much more frequently.

The purpose of BeReal is smart, and unfiltered reality is definitely something that should be prioritized, but until BeReal changes how much you can do on the app, it won’t really remove insecurity issues. Unless something changes, people that resemble Frankenstein’s monster will still end up spending most of their time on apps that make them look like a model.