Okay, I’ll be the first to admit – the first time I heard of BeReal, my closure-deprived self was all for it. Finally, an app where I can be a part of my friend’s lives without needing to sort through a flood of sponsored, paid partnership posts.

My naivety survived for a few seconds before being swallowed by my nihilistic void.

I downloaded the app and reluctantly found myself thinking: “What would happen if the two-minute notification to post came now? How would I make the photo seem decently mediocre?”

Despite BeReal’s intentions to share your real self through impromptu notifications with your friends, is that self really real when you keep thinking about what time the notification will come, and how that moment will be portrayed?

Moreover, the app subscribes to a common social media phenomenon: believing that it exists in an alternative universe, separate from its competitors. The truth is, most of us are getting to know about BeReal on Instagram, when our friends shared the picture-perfect moment that happened to coincide with the app’s notification.

While there may be some truth to the feeds exclusively shared on BeReal, we can’t fool ourselves into believing that this authenticity lives in a vacuum. Rather, it proliferates into our lives through a new dimension of added pressure – If my friend’s BeReal is so textured in character, what does my BeReal say about me?

I guess I’ll just have to jampack my day with influencer-material activities, just so that my BeReal can make me feel better about what I share – oh wait..