CS304 Blog #1 - BeReal

Hi everyone, my name is Megan Yamamoto and I’m a fourth-year student majoring in Communications Studies with the Management Option. A fairly new and up-and-coming social media platform that I find interesting is the app Be Real. Be Real essentially is like a combination of Snapchat and Instagram morphed together to create a platform with real-time photos published to a timeline where individuals can react and comment on posts. The app is based on the premise that once a day at any random time, every single person on the app is sent a notification saying it’s “it’s time to be real”. This means they have 2 minutes to post a photo from the front camera and their back camera of what they are doing at that moment. You are allowed to post after the designated "BeReal time” but it will notify your friends that you posted late. I find this social media platform very interesting because it’s an attempt at making social media a little more realistic as you are not allowed to edit photos or use filters, and you only have one chance to publish a post and only one chance to delete and retake it once it’s uploaded. Another aspect is that you are unable to see other people's posts until you post your own BeReal. It’s similar to Snapchat where it’s a quick one-off snap, but also like Instagram in the sense that there’s a timeline and features to interact with one another. I also find this app unique because you can see what everyone is up to in a more authentic way rather than on Instagram where people tend to just post the highlights of their life rather than the boring everyday stuff. 


Do you use BeReal? If so, what do you like or dislike about it compared to other social media platforms? Do you think the platform enables more authenticity than other platforms?


The BeReal notification:


What it looks like once you take a picture:

Comments

  1. JustinCoutoSeptember 24, 2022 at 6:12 AM

    Great to meet you Megan. Although I have heard of BeReal and know quite a few people who use it regularly, I have chosen not to download yet another social media app. The concept of it certainly is new and unique and should force people to be themselves on social media which does not happen often. More so than on Instagram and Snapchat where, like you said, people are focusing on posting only when they feel they have a post "worthy" of their feed, BeReal is all about posting unconventional photos of you just going through the day to day of your life. I do worry that it wont be long until people begin to fake their BeReal posts and the app loses its authenticity.

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