You know you are a boomer when an app you’ve never heard off is the most downloaded app
BeReal is somewhat of an anomaly for me. While people will first see this as an opportunity to showcase their ‘real life’, it wont take long for people to somehow cultivate the image that we put out. to gamify the system, to have something interesting and noteworthy to share to effectively ‘win’ at socialisation.
This is how society has always worked. People with money used to sit in visible boxes with poor views when watching shows, just so that they would be seen by the commoners below. By creating a system where we can follow and like others reels, people will pride themselves on the growth they can generate through their life.
In my eyes, this represents a tangible cultural shift. What people want is a return to authenticity, a countercultural shift away from images of perfection. Quite a lot of brands are mirroring this shift with their social media presence applying more more bold, memetic strategies that would never make it through being justified to the higher ups in the company. It resonates because it speaks directly to what the youngest generation (with money) wants from their companies. realism.
We should be prepared to see a lot more ‘false realism’ in the coming years. a veiled stripping back of industry facades, while not really revealing anything.
I love the irony of BeReal as an “anti-social” social app, that is more real than the other offerings.
Meanwhile, it asks people to obey push notification commands like a horde of automatons, “take a photo now of where you are and what you are doing, monkey”. That app could be incredible for information gathering about a populace’s whereabouts and activities.
Nope, not for me. Why would i move from one big brother to another big brother (disguised as something else).
At the end of the day
Each time there is a new social network there is a gold rush… at least to get the most valuable nicknames 😅
Each time there is a promise to be ethical, to be soft with ads, etc. And each time there is someone paying all the checks that wants his money back…
Whether we like it or not reality is boring, without a monetisation route this app will fail.
