The real deal?

How much does hypocrisy bother you? For Gen Z*, it might be the ultimate faux pas.

Gen Z are so concerned with authenticity and integrity that they have earned themselves the nickname ‘true gen’. They want ethical chewing gum, natural-looking makeup, and fair-trade stickers on their bananas.

New social media platform BeReal has quickly cottoned onto this, staking its entire business on the idea. According to Glamour magazine, it ‘might be the first actually authentic social media platform’.

Just like big-hitters Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter, it allows you to connect with friends. But rather than being able to post whatever you like, whenever you like, it sends a daily notification giving users two minutes to share a photo of themselves and their immediate surroundings. Everyone has the same two-minute window, no one knows when it’s coming. So rather than looking at someone’s curated, edited and heavily filtered holiday highlights, you might get a photo of their cornflakes.

Finally, a chance to connect without the ‘fomo’ (fear of missing out) and the filters?

As a millennial, I felt something of a fraud setting up an account. But I was surprised at how many of my (admittedly younger) friends I found on it. After a bit of digging however, I discovered that many of these friends had stopped using the app after just a few months. And this wasn’t uncommon.

BeReal was born in 2020, but gained popularity rapidly in 2022, peaking at around 15million daily users in October. After this short, sharp rise however, it began to decline. As of March, it sat at 6million daily users and is still now gently falling.

What’s the reason for this? Perhaps it’s that BeReal reflects a reality we don’t want to see.

Recently, a friend of mine was crying on the phone to her mum when the two-minute warning for BeReal popped up. Instead of capturing the moment, she used its handy ‘pause’ button. Using this button to post later in the day, during less raw or mundane moments, has become common practice. As has taking images from BeReal and sharing them on other social media platforms. In other words, using BeReal to lend authenticity to your constructed online image: ‘See, I really am this fun’ – ironic, right?

In a recent New York Times article on the topic, Oliver Haimson, Assistant Professor at the University of Michigan, calls this ‘the online authenticity paradox – considering authenticity to be important, but often falling short of achieving it in our digital presences for very human reasons. For example, because we want to share exciting moments with others, or we care what our followers think of us.’

It seems that our desire to be real, even Gen Z’s strength of desire, isn’t as strong as our desire to be accepted.

We can’t help but shout about our proud moments. We can’t help but hide our ugly ones. BeReal was the ultimate test of this – it offered us the chance to finally do social media honestly, to connect with friends authentically, and we weren’t able to take it.

This is nothing new. Hiding was the very first thing Adam and Eve did after they sinned, ‘sewing fig leaves together’ to cover their unsightliness. And both the Bible and history are full of stories of people doing the same.

Is it any wonder BeReal isn’t working?

This might feel gloomy, but it shows a way we can present the gospel to young people in which it will hit home. It shows an area where Gen Z may have ‘ears to hear’ (Matt.11:15). Or as Tim Keller says, an area where they ‘feel pinched by their view of the world, like feet in a pair of shoes that are too small’.

Although we can’t be real on an app with friends and family, sometimes even with ourselves, there is a way we can be real. We can be real before Jesus – because He was ‘real’ before us. On the cross, Jesus was exposed in front of those watching and unable to hide. More than this, He was exposed before the Father. All our sin, unsightliness, and things we try so desperately to keep covered up, were on Him (2 Cor.5:12) and He stood before the Father in it.

We can tell Gen Z the astonishing news that, because of the cross, we can now be before God uncovered and totally real, knowing that there is no condemnation for those in Jesus. What hope for a generation who needs to hear it.