Move over, Instagram and TikTok. There’s a new “unfiltered” social media app in town—and we’re officially intrigued. BeReal is a one-post-per-day app that gives you a two-minute window to post a picture of what you’re doing along with one image of your face while you’re doing it. It’s been one of the top 10 most downloaded free social networking apps for iPhones nearly every day since April 1, according to SensorTower.
Translation: There’s no time to get a quick blow-out, post last week’s killer vacation photos or pretend you’ve generally got your act together (pfft). How totally refreshing.
BeReal has grown (primarily among college users) by a whopping 315% since January, according to Apptopia, and it’s not because of a kitten filter. It appears that while we’ve been wasting time figuring out our best angle and choosing between 52 nearly identical photos of our kids (we admit it), Gen Z’s been getting pretty bored with “perfectly packaged” social media content.
And where the youths lead, we tend to follow—which could be the case with the BeReal app. According to a survey by the Priory Group, an independent behavioral care network in the UK, “As many as half of parents think that social media sites like Instagram and Facebook create unrealistic and unattainable expectations of family life, fueling mental health issues like anxiety and… depression.” Twenty-two percent said that scrolling through seemingly perfect family pictures of friends and families on social media made them feel “inadequate,” while 23% also reported that social media posts of perfect lives made them feel “depressed.”
So what if we could strip away the performance aspect altogether? Can you imagine a world where we actually got a glimpse into one another’s parenting reality? Dirty dishes, witching hours, yoga pants and grilled cheeses would never have such glory. The same goes for rushing to make pick-up from a meeting that went long, walking out of the school parking lot because you got the day wrong, and getting covered in sticky hugs when you said yes to that late-night popsicle. It seems like something a mom (or dad) could get used to.
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