There’s a social app that’s having a big moment. You’ll find it trending at the top of the App Store. It’s called BeReal.
But how long will the hype last, for real? At what point do you get exhausted from seeing mundane photos of your friends’ computer screens and views from the couch/bed?
The app is reminiscent of a phase I had on Snapchat several years ago where I was receiving meaningless photos of literally nothing from connections on the app to maintain “streaks”.
Consumer moods are ever-changing but often cyclic. A look at fashion is the most tangible way to see this. Trends do return. The consumer social app industry also reflects this (the incredibly insightful Ben Evans has put this phenomenon into words succinctly). And perhaps that’s all there is to the current hype around BeReal.
But I wonder if there’s more than meets the eye. Have users hit peak self-curation in social? People who aren’t influencers certainly create a lot fewer posts on Instagram than they did in 2019. Or is it our social graph on Instagram et al. that has gotten too big and too meaningless? If that is the current mood, then BeReal fixes both for the time being.
Note that BeReal is not a brand new app. It’s been around for a while, but the hype is new. It isn’t uncommon for products (or even people, for that matter) that have been around for a while to suddenly start breaking out. Only time will tell whether this ballyhoo will last a cool 15 minutes or crown a new king of social network land.