Can BeReal Save Gen-Z from Toxic Online Culture?
You go on Instagram to share pictures and videos of your life. This is our way of keeping in touch with the outside world. Other people see your photos and what you’ve been up to, and vice versa. Yes, you might have a private account that you only let your family or closest friends follow. Still, most of us have hundreds to thousands of followers and are posting monthly or weekly to update our followers on what we’ve been up to. We’re all just showing off. Don’t get me wrong; I do it too. When we make Instagram posts, it’s to showcase who we are. We want everyone to see how cool we are, what we like to do, what we like to wear, what our vibe is, etc. But is that who we are, or are we putting on a front? Are we telling the truth on social media? Are we being authentic?
The app BeReal was first released in 2020 by Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau. If you’re unfamiliar with BeReal, it’s an app that sends notifications randomly throughout the day. You’re prompted to open the app and take a photo of whatever you are doing at that exact moment. The point is, to be honest about your life with your friends on the app. In theory, this should work and be effective in creating a space on social media that is purely authentic. Here’s the catch. The app lets you completely ignore the notification and wait until you’re doing something cooler to take your BeReal. In addition, the app gives you the option to retake your BeReal as many times as you want within a two-minute window. This gives people a chance to try, try, and try again until they’ve formulated the perfect BeReal for everyone else to see. Newsflash! That’s not real. No matter how hard we try or how many opportunities we are given to be real, we can’t seem to do it.
Therein lies the issue with our generation. Authenticity. Everyone is so caught up with amassing a large number of followers that they will do whatever it takes to get to that point. Most of us conform to the latest vibe or trend because it’s in our nature. It’s called the bandwagon effect, defined by Investopedia as “A psychological phenomenon in which people do something primarily because other people are doing it, regardless of their own beliefs, which they may ignore or override.” Even our generation’s collective download of BeReal was an example of the bandwagon effect at work. We’re seeking approval from the humans on the other side of the screen. For once, maybe we should drop the curtain and show everyone who we are. Post whatever you want to post. Stop thinking about whether the photo has the right filter or the camera angle is right, and please stop with the TikTok trends. We all have something genuinely cool and different to offer to the world. Why not showcase that instead? Let’s really be real and our authentic selves.
Strike Out,
Ryan Manney
Boca Raton
