Stop using BeReal like Instagram
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Loading... - Mensah Oteng
- 22 Aug 2022
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Some of you are using BeReal exactly as it was intended. I salute you for that. But some of you are using it in a very, very wrong way. You know exactly who you are.
For those who don’t know, BeReal is a social network that is anti-social in many ways. The app will send a notification to all users at a randomly determined time, letting them know it’s “BeReal time”. Theoretically, immediately upon receiving this notification, users open BeReal, take a picture of what they are doing, and post it on the app. You can’t see other people’s BeReals until you’ve posted your own.
The latter app is notoriously curated – people fill it with beautiful, carefully edited photos of themselves doing glamorous things with large groups of delighted friends. You post your best moments and above all nothing else.
But BeReal can’t be curated – or at least it’s intended not to be. It is that real She. Scrolling through Instagram can make you feel like you’re the only one spending your Friday night watching Netflix on your bed while everyone else is in town, but scrolling through BeReal reminds you that you’re not alone are. It’s oddly comforting – it’s perhaps the most effective online cure for FOMO there is.
At least that’s the intention.
But BeReal has a fatal bug that I believe severely disrupts its mission: the BeReal notification doesn’t expire. While you may not post a BeReal before the notification is sent, you can post one at any time after the notification expires (until the notification the next day, of course).
As a result, very little stops people from using this app the same way they use Instagram stories. That said, regardless of when the BeReal notification goes out, they’re posting every night around 8pm when they’re inevitably doing something exciting. And they end with a BeReal full of artistic photos of coffee mugs, martini glasses, sunsets on the beach and selfies with friends in glittering locations – a curated roll to impress her followers. In other words, Instagram Stories.
I see this in people I know (sorry, people I know), but I also frequently scroll the public Discovery feed, and this is clearly a trend growing across the platform. (And my frustration is Not that these people are doing fancier things than me at 8 p.m.—put down the pitchforks, residents of the comments section.)
Well, I’m not criticizing the late BeReals per se. We’re not all always available when the notification pops up – I myself post BeReals that are a few hours late every once in a while. But the people I’m talking about don’t do that. Rather, they deliberately consistently ignore the timing of the BeReal notification and choose to publish their posts on the highlights of their day. I don’t think this is a blurry or subjective line. You know if you are in this category. you know it very well. Read More...
