A new wave of social media apps are taking advantage of the revolt against Instagram and TikTok. Will these ‘authentic’ networks change the way we connect?
Both sides now: BeReal gets users to take a front-and-back photograph on their phones every day; they then get to see their friends’ snapshots.Both sides now: BeReal gets users to take a front-and-back photograph on their phones every day; they then get to see their friends’ snapshots.last month when Instagram trialled changes that flooded users’ feeds with short-form videos called “reels” and content uploaded by strangers.
It’s these app design choices that mean the whole world can follow the evolution of a wildly popular makeup trend, or joinagainst a 20-year-old furniture designer from Brooklyn who ghosted some girls on Tinder. “TikTok is like my generation’s TV,” says Deborah Mackenzie, 23, from Aberdeen. She and her friends don’t post much themselves; it’s more about browsing other people’s content to pass the time.
“What we’re seeing now is Gen Z’s taste shifting towards deeper, more personalised experiences,” says Matt Moss, the founder of Locket, an app that’s about as stripped-back as it’s possible to be: allowing close friends and family to share photos that appear as an enlarged widget on the other person’s home screen.
With TikTok and Instagram both expanding beyond social media’s original remit, Kristin Merrilees, a 20-year-old New Yorker, says BeReal is capturing that unfulfilled urge to connect with friends throughout the day. “I like to see what my friends are up to, especially during the summer where a lot of us are more spread out because we’re not in the same place or in school,” she says.
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