Olivia Bamford, 23, from Derbyshire, says she stopped using Instagram because she felt that other people’s content would always be better than her own. In addition to facilitating meaningful connections with friends, the new wave of social media platforms claim to be solving another issue: the increasing pressure to perform, grow a following, and become an influencer on TikTok and Instagram. “I like to see what my friends are up to, especially during the summer where a lot of us are more spread out because we’re not in the same place or in school,” she says. With TikTok and Instagram both expanding beyond social media’s original remit, Kristin Merrilees, a 20-year-old New Yorker, says BeReal is capturing that unfulfilled urge to connect with friends throughout the day. Its popularity is radiating out beyond the college students that first jumped on board, thanks, in part, to an ambassador programme and payments for signing up. The vast majority of its lifetime 28m downloads happened this year according to the Business of Apps. This is supposed to ensure that users snap a picture of whatever they’re doing at the time – no matter how unglamorous – paired with a selfie – no matter how unkempt – to promote a way of relating more authentically to friends online.Ĭurrently the No 1 social networking app in the Apple App Store in the US, BeReal is growing rapidly. Users can take it later, too, but can’t see their friends’ content until they’ve posted themselves. The app prompts users to take a simultaneous front and back camera picture every day at a specific time, within a two-minute window.
Moss originally built the app to keep in touch with his long-distance girlfriend when he finished university but says a billion photos had been shared on it by the end of July, after it blew up following a viral moment on TikTok at the end of last year.Īnother app clocking up its fair share of viral moments is BeReal, launched in 2019 by the French entrepreneurs Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau. “What we’re seeing now is Gen Z’s taste shifting towards deeper, more personalised experiences,” says Matt Moss, the founder of Locket, an app that’s about as stripped-back as it’s possible to be: allowing close friends and family to share photos that appear as an enlarged widget on the other person’s home screen. Users snap whatever they’re doing at the time – no matter how unglamorous – paired with a selfie – no matter how unkemptĪs the scale of Instagram and TikTok becomes increasingly impersonal (and, to be fair, the latter has always insisted it’s an entertainment app, rather than social media), a new generation of social media companies including BeReal, Locket Widget, Yubo and Poparazzi have spotted an opportunity to prioritise intimacy over infamy. She and her friends don’t post much themselves it’s more about browsing other people’s content to pass the time. “TikTok is like my generation’s TV,” says Deborah Mackenzie, 23, from Aberdeen. It’s these app design choices that mean the whole world can follow the evolution of a wildly popular makeup trend, or join a campaign against a 20-year-old furniture designer from Brooklyn who ghosted some girls on Tinder.
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