TAll in all, we spend relatively little time in front of swimming pools or baking sourdough bread. In real life, closet doors are left half-open, beds are rarely made, bouquets of flowers are rare. Big bundles of knots of power cables and chargers pile up in the living room, we eat frozen fish cakes rather than poke bowls and on the sofa in front of the TV rather than on a rough wooden table. Above all, most of the days seem to take place sitting or lying in front of screens.
It is this life, the ugly and everyday life, that the users of BeReal document, the app which, once a day, asks its users to share a photo of where they are within two minutes that follow. The photo is of course without filter. Another limit to the staging of oneself, the app posts both sides of the shot: in other words what we see and the person behind the lens. Looking at the result, we can measure the time we spend in transport, washing dishes or shopping at Picard’s. What we believed to be the interstices of life ultimately form the essential.
How do we recognize them?
BeReal users are young, let’s say younger at any rate than Facebook users. They can take their photos in a hallway, an elevator, as long as they have ugly lights. They don’t take off their masks for the photo. Among them, students who sneak photos of their teachers, teachers who photograph their students in class without their knowledge. Their photos are sometimes taken at work: baker, butcher, soldier in the barracks, farmer on his tractor, but fortunately rarely neurosurgeon in operation.
How they talk
They pronounce “Biril” and not bi-ri-ol. “Add me to BeReal. “ “My BeReals, it’s half me working, the other half me brushing my teeth. “ “When I work, I dare not take pictures of my surroundings. “ “It was my intern who told me about it. She’s two years younger than me. “ “Screens are boring in photos, but we spend our lives on them. “” I don’t know how they decide to send notifications, but when I receive them, I’m never at an exhibition, a party or in a Fooding-type restaurant. “ “I have little recollection of receiving the notification when I was doing something interesting. “ “It shows my lack of social life. “ “On Instagram, anyone can see what we post, like the mother of a girlfriend. BeReal is more intimate. “” With close friends, it’s good to know who does what rather than social media address books which are a bit fake. ”
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