⚠️ BeReal ⚠️: Will it Stay Relevant?
for a better visual read, check out this piece here.
BeReal is #1 on the App Store.
BeReal 101: a social media app where users get a notification at a random time in the day and have 2 minutes to post a two-way pic, with any late photos marked as late. After posting, users can scroll through to see the uploads of close friends. The next day, the photos are gone, a new notification comes, and the cycle repeats.
The promise of the app is in its authenticity. The company says about the app that it is “a candid and fun place for people to share their lives with friends”, and “We want to make people feel good about themselves and their lives. We want an alternative to addictive social networks fueling social comparison and portraying life with the goal of amassing influence.”
There are articles coming out nearly every hour on BeReal. It’s hot - but just how hot is it with Gen Z?
How popular is BeReal right now?
Searches and mentions of BeReal are currently at their peak (for now) on Google and Snapchat.
The question everyone is asking is will it stay relevant? Or join the social media graveyard with Poparrazi and Clubhouse?
In order to understand where it is going, we must understand where it actually is today; BeReal’s cultural relevance.
Cultural relevance typically does not have a measurement - tools like Brandwatch report on metrics that can be reasonably informative, but cultural relevance is more than a combination of social mentions and views. Cultural relevance, in our definition, is the ability of a brand, person, or idea to consistently and organically stimulate conversation on and offline.
What is most important to cultural relevance is not the sharpness or magnitude of a rise, but how well that topic can persist over time in driving conversation. Brands can have a moment of relevance, like the trend for Adult Swim that took over TikTok more than a year ago, or they can persist in driving conversation over time.
Google Trends 5-year searches for “Adult Swim”.
At dcdx, we measure and quantify cultural relevance on a 0-100 scale that we call the GenZ Score®. We analyze the most popular, brand-relevant user-generated content on social over different time intervals to understand what factors drive brand conversation among a young audience, how often those factors emerge, and how much conversation is actually happening. The result is then standardized on a 0-100 scale, enabling us to compare any brand in the US on the same metric.
Within just the last week, BeReal has gone from a GenZ Score® of 77.1 to 80.8 (+3.7).
The popularity of UGC for BeReal just within the last week is up 124%.
We see that slowly, BeReal is persisting over time in driving organic conversations. Compare last week’s score to this week’s, and you’ll see that a +3.7 point jump in a week is massive. The score is built around persistence - taking into account relevance over multiple time frames - and yet still, overall cultural relevance is rising quickly.
The question we are all asking is - will it stay relevant?
We need to look at 3 forces to understand its trajectory.
What behaviors does it reveal about Gen Z today?
What behaviors is it creating/impacting?
Will this technology be able to adapt and evolve with culture?
What behaviors does it reveal about Gen Z?
Aside from spurring what appears to be an endless source of high-quality memes, BeReal reveals fascinating insights into Gen Z behaviors.
if they had bereal in 1865
July 17th 2022
140 Retweets3,329 Likes
Proof of attendance (no, not like the NFT…unless?)
The biggest observable pattern for Gen Z in communications around BeReal is that there is a meme-like but very real intention to “win” BeReal.
I think this BeReal might win
20 Retweets589 Likes
Demi’s GOING TO ONO!!!! @demidarko_
i dont mean to brag but my bereal won yesterday 🤭🤭
5 Retweets193 Likes
In the moments in life we want to show others what we’re doing, we desperately want our BeReal notification to come.
But for the majority of us, it never comes when we want it to, inspiring content around what is likely the most popular and relatable element of BeReal: it never comes in clutch with the timing.
But why not just post those moments on Instagram?
But for those moments missed, why not just post on Instagram? Is that not what the platform is for? It is, yes. But here’s the key.
Because of the way the app works, an on-time post is proof. Time stamped proof that this is what you are doing, right now. On Instagram, that photo could be from whenever, doctored and edited however, and taken by whomever.
BeReal is a source of truth - at its core, it is actually not too disimilar to an NFT. If you post late, people know it’s late. If you post on time, peole know it’s on time.
You were either there at the time, or you were not. There is no questioning what you see or how you’re seeing it. Because you know who is taking the photo (thanks to the front and back cam photos).
It does indeed remove all of the fakeness of Instagram and Snap - photos that can be taken at any time, made to look any way, from any person.
BeReal does not lie. It is, well, real.
In those boring moments captured, does it make us feel even lonelier? Is it any better than Instagram or Snap?
While the majority of content on social may be about BeReal wins or BeReal fails, the majority of BeReal content is really just…boring. But that does not mean it is bad.
Casey Newton, former editor of The Verge and founder of Platformer writes in his article on BeReal:
I think all of this undersells just how weird BeReal can be. Your individual experience may vary — I’ve been out of college a long time, and most of my friends on BeReal seem never to leave their houses — but I don’t think I’ve ever seen such a mundane collection of media in my entire life as I have while browsing BeReal.
Here is a friend typing on a laptop. Here is a friend feeding his dog. Here is a friend staring at a wall of faces on Zoom.
Yet in a May piece, the New Yorker argues that despite the intentions of the app, it is not actually doing that much different than Instagram or Snapchat. They write:
“On many days since signing up for BeReal, I’ve been taking a nap or lying on the couch, staring at my phone, when the alert arrived. In most cases, I’ve either hurried to find something less embarrassing that I could plausibly be doing or simply skipped posting that day, thus missing out on the experience of Being Real entirely. Users may not be able to whiten their teeth or adjust the saturation in their posts, but they can still stage their pictures against their apartments’ nicest wall, or push piles of dirty laundry out of view.
The difference between BeReal and the social-media giants isn’t the former’s relationship to truth but the size and scale of its deceptions.”
Yes there are moments that win - the Harry Styles concert, the Louvre, etc. And there are certainly moments that lose, like a BeReal notification coming during the cremation of your sister 💀.
comments on this are priceless
But what’s fascinating about this is that at the time of seeing it in the app, Gen Z knows it is just a moment. We know had it been two hours earlier or later, the moment would not have been captured.
a comment on the cremation video
While it may be true the size and scale of the deception differ, what is also true is that Gen Z’ers continue to post and engage, despite these “boring” moments, however small the deception around them may be.
And we believe that is because at the core, BeReal unlocks this untapped generational need for belonging and comfort through social. We believe it is comforting to see that your close friends have a life that is just as…boring….as yours.
Part 2:
We bring you this BeReal pt 2 content amidst quite a bit of Instagram drama. Some advice for Instagram this week? BeReal!
Last time, we looked at the relevance of BeReal, and what it reveals about Gen Z behaviors. Today, we’ll take a look at the updated brand relevance score alongside key question #2 in determining its staying power.
BeReal GenZ Score update: 84.8 (up +4.0 from 80.8).
Reminder: the GenZ Score® measures cultural relevance. The score process weights and standardizes the most popular, brand-relevant user-generated content (UGC) on social media by analyzing the popularity of UGC over 4 different time intervals: the previous 1 week, 1 month, 3 months, and 6 months.
Why did the score go up 4 points? As long as new organic UGC is consistently more popular than previous content, the score will continue to rise; aka more people are talking about it more frequently. At some point, that will die down, and the score will drop.
Will it just keep going up like this? The popularity of UGC within the last week is nearing its max - which means in order for it to keep going up at all, UGC will need to keep coming out with high frequency and high popularity, which will not change this week’s subscore much, but will eventually change the later time categories.
Q2: What behaviors is it creating and impacting?
#1: Copycats and clones creating demand for instantaneous behaviors
Remember when Uber was peaking and every new startup was “Uber for X”? It seems like we’re in the beginning phases of the next copycat platform cycle. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think this is a bad thing. It clearly shows the relevance and size of behavior that resonates with people.
A few weeks ago, this tweet went viral:
BeReal but for music: at a random time you must share what ur listening to
July 13th 2022
6,807 Retweets68,911 Likes
And as it turns out this is very (Be)Real and very aware of its behavioral proximity to BeReal. Bopdrop, which is quite literally referring to itself as the BeReal for music, is blowing up on TikTok and Twitter because it has tapped into that association. Smart move, @bopdropmatt:
not downloading bereal but I’ll download bopdrop
2 Retweets14 Likes
This BeReal for X is not real, and probably for a good reason, but also a fun thought:
bereal but you paste whatever is in your clipboard
26 Retweets1,068 Likes
The ideas of BeReal for photos, music, copy and paste seem to pull out a hidden desire among Gen Z’ers to remove the walls that technology has enabled us to put up for so long, and move away from showing others who we want to be and showing others who we are.
Ah, and where would we be without an Instagram clone?
If Instagram clones you, you’re doing something right, no?
Instagram already has popped out an MVP version of a competitor; their stories now include a filter with a BeReal-esque double camera view.
paris martineau @parismartineau
in an apparent attempt to copy the popular app BeReal, Instagram is rolling out its own feature (called ‘Dual’) to take disappearing photos using the front and back cameras simultaneously left is IG stories, right is BeReal
97 Retweets999 Likes
One TikToker (maybe he secretly works for Instagram because this is just too good) is extremely confident that its only a matter of months before Instagram launches its own version of BeReal (click the image below to watch it).
watch this TikToker predict what will happen with Instagram in a few months
#2: The Gen Z Paradox of Trust
BeReal strengthens an emerging behavior that is appearing more and more across this generation.
Our circle of trust grows smaller (but also bigger). Let me explain:
Instagram is for all your acquaintances. Family, friends, random people you meet at a bar that you say you’ll stay in touch with but never do but still see what they’re doing on Instagram because maybe one day it’ll happen, etc.
Finstas (if you know us you know what is linked there) were made for close friends, and soon enough Instagram launched close friends on stories, which is for… your close friends. All of that was copied from Snap, of course, but it’s easier to explain through the lens of just one social.
A Business Insider article writes…
“BeReal is so much the opposite that it's a different kind of intimidating. Do I really want everyone to see my pajamas? Am I confident enough to show everyone an awkward, poorly lit selfie? To expose the corners of my messy room and unmade bed?”
“Those worries were mainly eased by the fact that I currently don't have any distant relatives or random acquaintances as friends on the app. While I have just over 1,000 followers on Instagram, I only have 26 friends on BeReal, and I'd like it to stay that way.”
BeReal is just the most recent example of this circle of trust moving closer and closer.
But at the same time, it’s never been so far away. We see this idea of Distributed Trust grow increasingly prevalent as motives, agendas, and capitalism seep into every element of our information-overloaded lives. Matt Klein writes in his brilliant piece on this matter:
When truth is decentralized, no one voice can change anything until the community first confirms it’s true.
Ironically, anonymity was once thought to curb trust, but now it actually promotes it. Actors with an agenda are prevented from altering the narrative, as it’s impossible to buy out the hive mind or to sway the entire community with a false promise.
In community we trust.
When hierarchy and status are removed via anonymity, we’re at peace knowing the recommender has nothing to gain. As a result, participation is perceived as low-stakes, unbiased and selfless. There’s no ulterior motive. They have nothing to gain. And they answer honestly because when it’s their turn to ask for advice, they want an honest answer too. They reply openly because it’s an investment for them. When this happens at scale and the crowd collectively surfaces “the best”, incredible things happen.
So we’re sharing things with a more intimate group of people, but also relying on the motiveless masses to get truthful information.
What is very promising about BeReal is that it claims to be equally motiveless. BeReal is very clear that their platform won’t make you famous. Right now, there is no monetization on the platform, no infinite scroll, no goal of keeping you on there as long as they can to get as much advertising revenue as humanly possible. You can not “go viral”; there is no motive, no agenda, just people being real.
Now many social platforms have started out free - this is not uncommon. BeReal will monetize eventually - but they’ve also made it very clear, at least for now, that the monetization will not maliciously addict us to the app.
#3: The contradiction to “self-expression”.
The MOST interesting thing about BeReal to us? That it seems to contradict the entire principle backed by most of the marketing world that Gen Z looks for ways of self-expression - the core values and principles of Instagram, the root arguments around gaming and virtual fashion.
Gen Zer’s love self-expression, right? Instagram filters, virtual identities, buying in-game skins, building virtual worlds…right???
Perhaps. But it is clear that is also where the money lies - customization, personalization, virtual worlds with endless monetization possibilities.
But maybe BeReal is the reminder we needed to see. Because on one end, marketers call for virtual identities and personalization through direct to avatar commerce allowing us to be who we want to be.
But on the other, there is a fast and furious movement toward the idea of not creating who we want to be, but just showing who we are.
The former is a world built by capitalism, and the latter, an adless, incentiveless platform designed to let users be who they are.
The permanence of the platform, while dependent on the app’s ability to evolve, will speak volumes for the true, raw behaviors and preferences of a generation.
BeReal shields us from the created worlds of brands.
And the final question that will help us understand BeReal’s staying power: