I Tried the ‘Anti-Instagram’ App, BeReal. It’s Boring and I Love It.

It takes me at least an hour to post one Instagram Story when I go out, and only ever after careful consideration, a mental storyboard, and copious amounts of proofreading. Should I open with a photo of our dinner spread? Is this mirror selfie cool or cheugy? What Taylor Swift pun can I make today? I get really quiet while considering these questions and others like it, furrowing my brows in an expression my friends call my “caption-writing face.”

If that sounds like a lot of mental gymnastics, it is. The sad part? It’s second nature at this point. My millennial brain is hardwired to curate my entire life like the magazines I grew up reading, including a good mix of things I love and care about: pop culture, music, food. Lots of food. On Instagram, a dash of pretentiousness is accepted, even expected. I’ve grown comfortable with that, happy to be able to control a small part of my life. But I also often find myself missing the early days of social media, when I’d log on to Friendster for an hour everyday, limited by my pre-paid internet, to post crappy photos before going back to reality. Back then, I was on the internet to share my life, not live it. 

So, I tried to BeReal. 

BeReal, the French social media app created by former GoPro employee Alexis Barreyat, was released in 2020 but only seemed to blow up in my circle of friends this past month. As of July, it has reportedly been installed at least 20 million times. It’s currently the top free iPhone app on the US App Store and is especially popular with Gen Z. It’s the anti-Instagram: All users (or at least those in the same time zone) simultaneously receive a notification to post a photo at a random time once a day and are only given two minutes to take the shot, leaving no time to overthink. It captures images from a phone’s front and back cameras at the same time, with no filter options, often resulting in awkward selfies or tilted landscapes that disappear the next day. The app promises it “won’t make you waste time” and “won’t make you famous.”

Some say it’s boring… and it kinda is. Since downloading the app last week, I never once caught myself planning what to post next. In fact, I forget I even have the app until a notification bubble pops up reminding me that it’s “Time to BeReal.” 

No one else can see my old photos because there’s no grid to speak of but a “Your Memories” page that’s only visible to me includes a post of my room with a selfie only showing a fourth of my face. Another old photo is that of my laptop screen halfway through an article about a sandwich juxtaposed with a selfie of me wearing the T-shirt I slept in the night before. 

I took these within the 2-minute time frame and didn’t bother to think of witty captions to go along with them. I’m not gonna lie—it was a challenge. I checked my photos multiple times to see if I posted anything private or confidential—data protection and privacy are already turning out to be big red flags for the app. I had to stop myself from proofreading. It’s like a finsta (which has since developed its own performative aesthetic) or those Instagram tags forcing you to “Post a photo of what’s in front of you (no cheating),” except it’s way harder to cheat. 

In the middle of writing this story, at around 5 p.m., I got a ping nudging me to upload my photo for the day. I graced my friends with yet another shot of my keyboard. The pictures I’ve seen from friends are just as mundane—a gym floor, an office coffee station, a bed. It’s a look into how people truly spend their days and a quick vibe check for anyone who needs it. 

It took me 30 seconds to see all my friends’ posts yesterday. And no matter how many times I swipe up, in an involuntary attempt to get one last hit, nothing else appears. The page looks frustratingly abandoned. It’s like the Pomodoro time management technique for social media, forcing me against my will to stop scrolling and get back to the article I’m writing, show I’m watching, or dinner table conversation happening right in front of me. I hate to admit it but this is the best part of all. BeReal’s finite feed is a mental detox for my brain damaged by endless content. 

With the app, I’m retraining myself to only check in on what friends are doing once a day, just like before. I know not to open it every 15 minutes to see if anything new has happened because I know for a fact nothing has. 

Following its “don’t give a fuck” spirit, I don’t want to overstate BeReal’s effect on me, but not having to overthink posts and constantly check for new content has been a good exercise for my mental health. Turns out, I really don’t need to consider every single detail about every single thing I do. 

I don’t think I'll ever truly get over my Instagram brain. I still have the app, love to use it, and don’t plan on deleting it anytime soon. The cynic in me also believes BeReal will eventually become performative, too. Soon, we’ll create visual and audio cues for what’s cool or acceptable to share, a BeReal language not unlike TikTok’s chaotic car rambles that even Kylie Jenner is now doing. Speaking of celebrities, what happens when more of our favorites start joining the app? I don't really know. But for now, I’m happy to bask in its nothingness. 

Follow Therese Reyes on Twitter and Instagram.