More real, or just more surveillance? Panopticism and shifting authenticity paradigms in BeReal

BeReal has become a popular app among younger social media users, with a premise that privileges a brief, random, and unvarnished look into one’s life once a day. Hailed as the ‘anti-Instagram’ or ‘anti-TikTok’, the app eschews filters, performance, influencers, and sponsored content in favor of authenticity. While curated authenticity has long been a hallmark of internet culture, BeReal seems to employ authenticity not as a performance strategy but as a value, tapping into criticisms of the inauthentic. Through the walkthrough method of social media app analysis, I employ ethnographic research tenets to analyze how BeReal forwards a different type of authenticity to its users from its discourse, design, interface, and features. The findings are two-fold: First, BeReal privileges authenticity-as-realness instead of authenticity-as-performance, using spontaneity and timed posting windows to severely limit the time one can craft a post. Second, BeReal acts as a panopticon, because the omnipresent possibility of posting means users are always already aware of the potential. Authenticity-as-realness is not uncomplicated; it relies much more heavily on neoliberal self-monitoring and panopticism to be ready for anything, as opposed to a finely tuned and intricately crafted performance with lighting, makeup, and editing. This indicates considerations of authenticity are changing on social media platforms, putting performance at odds with panopticism.