It’s the summer of 2022. You’re hanging out with your friends, probably talking about Pete Davidson and Kim Kardashian’s recent entanglement, making plans to see Top Gun: Maverick in theaters or discussing some other pop culture moment that felt important at the time, when you feel it: that all-too-familiar buzz from your back pocket. Your friend whips out their phone, and you can just barely make out the black and white pop-up notification. Before you can check your own screen, they confirm what you already suspected … “BeReal time!”
I remember first hearing about the app BeReal in the spring of 2022. I was intrigued and drawn to its simplicity — it was unbelievably straightforward. At a different time each day, the app sends you a notification, at which point you have two minutes to snap one photo of yourself and another using your back camera. The photos are then posted to a feed shared with your friends, which resets each day after a new notification goes off. No likes, no follower counts, no editing privileges. I was hooked.
The app seemed to promise what so many social media apps lacked: spontaneity and authenticity. In comparison to other social media platforms, where “candid” photos posted were actually the product of an entire photoshoot and filters gave you an opportunity to blur any blemish, the app was a breath of fresh air. It forced you to surrender some vanity and perfectionism, showing yourself as you are — completely unfiltered.
Millions of others, lured by that same promise, flocked to BeReal that summer. It exploded in popularity; the app, which had less than a million users at the beginning of 2022, had grown to a community of over 73 million by the end of the summer. Soon, it felt like everyone I knew was on the app, and as I began sharing my photos with a larger audience, I became increasingly aware of what I was posting.
With more friends on the app, posting felt a little more daunting and a little less real. I became more accustomed to ignoring the pop-up notification if caught at a “boring” moment until I was doing something more interesting and BeReal-worthy. My friends were doing the same.
In gaining popularity, the app lost some of its charm that had initially attracted people. It was becoming reminiscent of other platforms, with a similar self-consciousness as you post to a group of 50 or more “friends.”
Like most social media trends, the app seemed to drop in popularity as quickly as it had appeared. Since its rise in popularity in 2022, the number of monthly users has dwindled, with only 23 million regular users on the app now in 2024 — one third of what it was just a couple of years ago.
I am one of the millions of people who jumped on the BeReal bandwagon in its heyday before eventually forgetting about it. Now, reminiscing on those first few blissful months of avid BeReal use, I can’t help but wonder whether a return to the app could solve the dissatisfaction that many people, such as myself, feel on other platforms.
On apps like Instagram, where posts are curated highlight reels disguised as accurate portrayals of our lives — a scroll through your feed can feel draining. I have wasted hours on Instagram, against my better judgment, envying others and the lives they present through the lens of their iPhone cameras. Research shows that this habit carries a real risk to one’s mental health. According to a Duke study, those who frequently engage in social comparison face a greater risk of experiencing negative mental health effects associated with their social media use.
For those in a similar rut, I propose a change for this summer. I think there is something to be learned from BeReal. For a moment, it offered a glimpse of what social media could and should be: a way to genuinely connect with our friends. The study conducted by researchers at Duke also says that when we use social media in this way — experiencing joy regarding someone else’s experiences — we significantly reduce the risks associated with typical usage and social comparison.
My challenge to you all this summer, and myself, is this: challenge yourself to BeReal. Connect with people online that you genuinely care about. Stop thinking so much. Post the dumb selfie.
We can all benefit from being a little more real with one another, and ourselves online, even if just for two minutes at a time. I think it’s just a muscle we have to build — I hope to work on mine again this summer.
Laura Hurlburt is an Opinion columnist. She can be reached at laurhurl@umich.edu.
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