Trendspotting: Is BeReal the New TikTok?

NewsWire: 5/17/22

• BeReal, the latest social-media app attracting young people, is all about being spontaneous. Instead of curated photos and videos, users are served photos of their friends at random moments. (The Wall Street Journal)
  
• NH: Over the last two years, 6.8M people have downloaded the social media app BeReal. The app's primary users are teens and college students. Let's explore its appeal.
• How does the app work? At a random time once a day, users are prompted to take a selfie and a picture of their surroundings. They have two minutes to complete the task, or their post is flagged as late. The app doesn't allow filters, and you can't view your friends' accounts unless you yourself post. BeReal relies on users avoiding the stigma of a late post.
• What makes BeReal different? Most importantly, it's a closed community--meaning that every user shares their images in a group that must approve of any new person. It is in this sense a bit like Snapchat, but here there are no messages, just spontaneous images.
• Young people enjoy BeReal's spontaneity and unfiltered style. While Instagram is all about taking the perfect photo and gaining likes, BeReal is about sharing your true self, messy hair and all. The app also feels less commercialized: There are no ads, and it's almost impossible to brand yourself. (As of now, the app doesn't make money, but of course, like other social media sites, it could introduce advertisements once it establishes a large user base.)
• A year ago, we wrote about Homelanders' love of TikTok: Young people initially appreciated the app's informal qualities. (See "What Does TikTok's Success Say About the Future of Social Media?") Since then, TikTok has become less spontaneous and more profit-oriented. The app is full of glitzy celebrities, staged videos, and advertisements. Insider Intelligence estimates TikTok's worldwide ad revenue will hit a whopping $11.64B in 2022, exceeding the combined ad revenue of Twitter and Snapchat. 
• Will BeReal overtake TikTok? It's hard to say. On the one hand, TikTok's algorithm of endless content is too addicting for the app to become obsolete anytime soon. On the other hand, TikTok has lost much of the spontaneity that made it popular.
• BeReal claims to fill that void while also defining a different social media space. BeReal is for groups of friends and no one else. (Imagine a close and completely spontaneous version of Instagram.) BeReal may chip away at some of TikTok's user base. But its long-term success depends upon the popularity of its format. By design, its only function is to keep a close tribe of friends in touch with each other. BeReal doesn't ask much time from users, nor does it offer them endless content.
• Is this a winning formula in a content-saturated world? We'll see.