Pro
Eden Bradley
Con
Chelsea Wasserstrom
“It’s time to BeReal!” This phrase seems to have taken over people’s lives since the social media platform BeReal took the world by storm.
BeReal sends out a message at a different time every day, giving users two minutes to take and share a picture with their friends. This approach offers the opportunity to share experiences in real time, allowing a more authentic experience with those around them.
BeReal prides itself on being a genuine form of self-expression. With apps like Instagram or TikTok, there is an expectation that users have to express their best selves; creating harmful pressures. BeReal allows users to share what they’re doing with others without damaging standards, such as unrealistic body expectations or extravagant lifestyles.
Many argue that BeReal has a habit of taking people out of the moment, as they’re caught up trying to take their picture. However, this can be something fun to do together and a good way to document activities.
BeReal is still more genuine than other forms of social media because the post itself is often casual and unfiltered unlike those seen on other platforms. Taking a picture after the two minutes can be seen as dishonest, as most people do this to capture a more exciting moment in their day. Taking a picture a few minutes or hours after the notification was sent is not as fake when compared to the editing, filtering and cropping of photos on other social media platforms.
When posting on traditional social media platforms, people tend to spend extra time taking multiple photos and editing them to ensure they are posting the best one for their audience. With BeReal, you automatically post the picture you take without any editing or manipulation, which shows a more authentic side of people that you wouldn’t typically see on other media.
BeReal has started a new era of social media, one in which people don’t have to enforce traditional media’s strict and toxic ideals. Instead, people can still share parts of their life with friends and family but do so on a more genuine form of social media.
BeReal: a social media platform that sends out a notification once a day, alerting its users to post what they are doing at a specific moment. While this concept may seem new, fun and lighthearted, BeReal is anything but real. Contrary to its goal and tagline, users have not been posting authentic content when prompted, diminishing the credibility of the app.
Despite not allowing edits to be made or previously taken images to be posted, BeReal remains a fake social media platform. BeReal gives users a false impression that their friends’ lives are always entertaining.
According to BeReal, the app is “a new and unique way to discover who your friends really are in their daily life.” However, BeReal would be more authentic if users did not have the option to post late or retake their photo an endless number of times.
When BeReal sends out its daily notification, users have a two-minute period to be on time. However, there is no cut-off for how late one can post as long as they do so before the next notification, making it fake. By posting late, users are not getting the real glimpse into their friends’ lives that BeReal advertises, thus contributing to an ingenuine platform.
Other users wait to post until they are doing something entertaining. Users may do this to flaunt their fabricated lives and make them seem more interesting than they are.
Users also have the option to retake the photo as many times as they would like. If retakes are accepted on the app, the post is not a real reflection of what users were doing in the moment the notification was released, making the app fake. BeReal says they want to eliminate social comparisons, but with meticulously taken posts, the app is not real.
While created to show authenticity and realness to its audience, BeReal has quickly become falsified and ingenuine just like the social media construct BeReal was trying to denormalize. Fake social media platforms are harmful for society because users compare themselves to others, even when the other person’s posts have been carefully orchestrated to only show the best, most interesting parts of their lives.
Freshman Jake Peacock
“No, generally people aren’t real on BeReal. Because people want to be perceived a certain way by certain people.”
Sophomore Bella McMaster
“No, BeReal is not real…people also often skip the days where they aren’t doing something interesting, and that is not very real to me.”
Junior Ace Hillman
“Yes, generally BeReal is real, but only if people follow it. Some people wait and don’t follow the point of the app, but it’s a more real social media platform.”
Senior Ava Foster
“Yes, Bereal is real. The people that have the app are real, but sometimes it’s fake because people on BeReal wait to show that they are doing something cool.”
Math teacher Laura Resnik
“Yes, Bereal is so real. I have been in student pictures in the past and they have a short amount of time to take the picture and post it.”