Another day one of the Kardashian/Jenner sisters photoshopped their idyllic photos in a bad way. Instagram and this was noticed by the “demonic” tabloid editors. Another day that fake news hit our feed, this time on Twitter from his newly created boss, Elon Musk.

It is common knowledge that what began on the planet social media how the digital network of pre-existing communities (we’ve all seen The Social Network) soon became giants, basing their fat profits on the partial transformation of their platforms. in advertising space – and this goes for both multinationals and sub-influencers – but also for them to be the most fertile ground for the development of their users. their every narcissistic aspect, build your own desired story about who they are, even if it has nothing to do with reality.

At the other end of this polished world he wanted to find Be real social media app they proposed in 2019 and released 2020 French Alexis Baregia (with experience in GoPro) as well as Kevin Pero.

The idea is simple: at certain times of the day, BeReal sends notification to their users. Then at their disposal 2 minutes so they capture everything they do at that moment – Using the external and internal camera at the same time. Filters are disabled. Also, you can’t upload something taken at an unsuspecting time. You can make more than one download, of course your friends will know exactly how many times you tried to get the coveted “click”. If you miss one day again, your friends will know too. Whatever you take will be uploaded to the platform, and you, in turn, will see the corresponding photo from the daily life of your friends. Others will see – and you will see – an authentic, spontaneous, unedited moment of you/them.

What does all this mean in practice? That the moment you “need” to show the BeReal world what you’re up to, you might be in the middle of a meeting, driving, in the bathroom, at a wedding or at a funeral. How whatever you do, you have to stop for two minutes and capture it. How should you create content every day at any cost, even if what you upload is of no interest and therefore no one cares (probably), offer access to the keyhole peephole and, indeed, without the necessary “direction”.

However, the idea is for sale. In April 2022, companies Andreessen Horowitz as well as Acceleration they financed with $30 million application, and a month later Global Daylight Saving Time invested in BeReal 85 million dollars. And that’s how the app’s value hit them. 600 million dollars.

BeReal can look forward to two years “in the air”, but in 2022 the number of users increased by 315% – at the end of August the platform ended 10 million active users per day, and the number of users per month reached 21.6 million, with the lion’s share belonging to generation Z. For example, 65% of total downloads applications submitted during this year.

So there seems to be room in the market for a hybrid of Snapchat and Instagram (when the “insta” in its name had any meaning) and a need for a more accessible and casual social environment. But to play the role of the devil’s advocate, how truly spontaneous and “healthy” can such an application be? Is it too late for us to see celebrities and influencers consume “random” foods at their unsuspecting moment during the day, for which they are, of course, well paid? On the other hand, we need one more stress a day, another task that will lead to ruthless FOMO if not completed?

And all this about “naturalness” is fine, but all those who without filters rush to capture a snapshot of their daily life in BeReal, with mathematical precision, are the same who the minute before and the next minute they will be on Instagram consume and produce their fabricated “reality”. We will probably end up seeing more people marveling in front of their camera “in media resolution” and indeed, with the imperative this time to record and produce content “now”, which is nothing more than a general “imposed” trend and logic , a a clear command in the form of a notice.

What BeReal is going to do, and any related applications that are likely to follow the relevant logic, is in fact fill the gap on the social media map, to turn another part of our daily life into material that, in the end, will bring profit to another company with great ambitions.

Social networks are becoming more and more an integral part of our existence, and the fact that we can look into the lives of other people is clearly pornographic in nature. We arrived at we like to watch life rather than live our own, free from the views of the public.

What worries the universe of social networks, more and more seems not to be communication (it has long been lost in its essential sense), but constant contact of the user with the environment itself. With BeReal, we will not only start seeing more of our friends in pajamas and hugging their pets. We will be forced to once again turn to the most famous phrase of Marshall McLuhan.