To Be Real or To Not Be Real? That is the question.
Be Real. A simple concept in which when prompted by a phone notification, you and your friend must whip out your phones and take a picture of you “living in the moment.” On the surface, this app is a unique response to social media culture, and allows for people to be authentic online, without the consequences of likes and virality. Be Real is the perfect modern response to combat the toxicity of social media culture… right?
Before I get on my soapbox about the problems the app has created, I will confess; I am an avid user of this app. What started as an ironic obsession has now become a part of my daily conscious. “When Will the Be Real go off?” “Will I be doing something interesting enough when it does go off?” “Will People Think It’s cringy that I’m lying in my bed for the third day in a row in my picture?” This inner dialogue surrounded simply around an app can be exhausting.
On top of the inner dialogue exhaustion, there’s an underlying pressure of the app’s urgency. A feature of this app is the 2-minute countdown of when you can “Be Real”. This is a countdown feature creates two problems for me:
1) If you are not on your phone, and genuinely living in the moment, then according to the app you aren’t “Being real.” Ironic, right?
2) If you are on your phone and aren’t satisfied with what you are doing in the moment, you have the option to “Be Real” later in the day when it is convenient to you. That just means that you’re being fake. Also, ironic.
If Be Real is supposed to be response to modern day social media culture, then why does it create new rules and pressures that are creating the same type of issues as other social platforms? It’s not the app itself that bothers me. It’s the overall narrative that the app tries to convey. Creating a social platform of any kind will just continue to reinforce the existing social media norms and rules. It’s just branded in different packaging.
My observations will not change my daily usage of this app, at least until the craze of the app dies down. I like being a part of the cultural moment, and it’s honestly fun to have these daily snippets of my life saved in one place. I genuinely enjoy commenting and reacting to my friend’s posts. I’ve accepted it into my life like I have with platforms like Instagram or Tik Tok. Be Real is not groundbreaking. It’s simply a new take on what we already have. It’s adding to the conversation, not changing the culture. And that’s ok to accept.
So Be Real. Or don’t. The choice is yours, don’t leave it in the hands of an app.
