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The platform only allows its users to post once a day at randomly designated times when they receive a notification stating, “It’s time to BeReal.” Once the notification appears, users have two minutes to snap a photo that uses both the front and back camera, showing a dual perspective of both the user’s face and what the user sees in front of them. A few clicks later, and I ventured off into the world of BeReal, a new age Luddite treading carefully in an all too familiar yet brand new online landscape.Īs its name suggests, BeReal is a social media app that seeks to capture authentic moments and eliminate reliance on photo editing, filters and heavily staged photoshoots. So the thought of a social media platform that could dismantle the very problems I had with social media itself piqued my interest - was such a feat really possible?
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Such negative experiences eventually led me to make a clean break from social media all together, and I became a fierce opponent of it. As cliche as it sounds, I very quickly began basing my self-worth off of objectively meaningless indicators such as likes and comments, grappling with feelings of inadequacy and FOMO and allowing mistrust and doubt to manifest into my personal relationships based on people’s presence and behaviors online. When I used to have social media, Instagram had always been the greatest source of strain on my mental health. It’s literally designed to deconstruct the fakeness of Instagram.”Īt the sound of this, my ears immediately perked up. “Pleaseeeeee,” she begged, “I promise it’s different from other social media apps. As someone with a practically nonexistent digital footprint, I’d gotten used to resisting pleas from my friends to “get on the grid,” so my affirmative denial came almost reflexively. “No,” I responded firmly, swatting her hand away. “Download BeReal,” my roommate implored me for the umpteenth time, adding emphasis to her emotional appeal through a sharp nudge to my side.