If you haven’t heard by now, there's a new major player in social media; ‘BeReal’. Though it’s trying to get on the field with other platforms such as ‘Instagram’ and ‘TikTok’, it’s here to change the game.
BeReal, a French-based social media platform released in early 2020, rapidly gained popularity in mid-2022, and still continues to grow. The app aims to eliminate the false-reality presented on social media by giving users two minutes to capture a photo of themselves and their surroundings at a random time every day. Without any follower or like counts, BeReal disassociates itself from the gauges of popularity we tend to see on other platforms.
Its growth can be largely credited to the app being shared across other social media platforms, in addition to their college ambassador program, which paid college students to use and share the app. This approach is a similar one that Facebook took back in the early 2000’s. The team behind the now infamous social media platform aimed to gain demand across college campuses, which started at Harvard University.
Original funding for BeReal was through investments, which raised over $30 million split amongst four investors. Currently, there are no in-app purchases, subscriptions, or advertisements anywhere across the platform, sources of revenue commonplace in social media.
The popular video-sharing platform, TikTok, is now starting to get in the photo sharing business, by introducing ‘TikTok Now’, a feature that boasts striking similarities to BeReal. TikTok Now allows users three minutes to “post a Now”, a photo or even a video clip up to ten seconds replying to a daily prompt.
A statement by TikTok reads, “TikTok Now brings the authenticity of TikTok to a whole new creative experience that connects you with those closest to you.”
The fact that a major platform is picking up a concept similar to that of a much smaller player goes to show how much sway BeReal has had over the industry. Other platforms, such as Snapchat and Instagram, have introduced similar features over the past few months.
There are doubts about BeReal’s future success, especially considering the fact that they currently have no means of monetization. With their current 21± million monthly active users, BeReal is substantially smaller than other platforms, such as TikTok with a staggering 1 billion users worldwide.
Just like every other social media though, BeReal isn’t quite perfect. “It’s stressful”, said Max Haskell, a current Léman sophomore. He explains that there is a kind of ‘pressure’ to post within the small time frame every day. If you post outside of the two minute mark, the number of minutes/hours late will be displayed, as well as the amount of retakes you took, which personally can be somewhat degrading.
In addition, a calendar displays all of your past BeReals from each day, putting the pressure on you to not skip one. This is similar to Snapchat’s ‘streaks’ feature, which encourages you and your friends to send a picture to each other every day. These features are put in place to help maintain consistent engagement, but can sometimes also be the source of stress.
While BeReal praises itself on these ‘authentic social media moments’, it's hard to believe that anything you see on the platform is even relative reality. Scrolling through BeReal, you can expect anything from photos in a physics class, to an up close look at Harry Styles. These posts, just like every other post on social media, are just moments, some more interesting than others. People are bound to get tired of this routine of revealing a moment of their lives every day. Without any incentive to post, or any sort of recognition, what is keeping people posting, and when will they stop?
“It’s just a phase”, says Anastasia Newsome, a current Léman Sophomore, and she's probably right. We’ve seen this before with other apps such as ‘Poparazzi’, which had initially gained popularity over TikTok, but ultimately failed to maintain a strong user base. BeReal seems to be thriving, but honestly, the likelihood that it will ever be able to compete with other top social media platforms is very low.
Though the future of BeReal is uncertain, with this style being adopted by more and more platforms, we can only hope that there is a shift to prioritize more reality-based content across social media platforms.