By Ashley Nguyen Page 4
By Kaitlyn Huamani Page
By Gabriella Medina Page
We chose to examine BeReal and the way it has altered the social media landscape because as members of Gen-Z, we each use BeReal every day and have seen, firsthand, its impacts on how people of our generation use social platforms. The app is designed to cultivate a culture of authenticity online and it strays away from predecessors like Instagram that encourage users to post polished and curated content. Through our research, we discovered that the culture BeReal is trying to create might be more of a fantasy than a reality, and we wanted to thoroughly explore why the move toward online authenticity is nearly impossible.
A zine felt like the most natural format for exploring BeReal because the societal norms BeReal is attempting to overturn were first introduced by magazines. Fashion magazines, in particular, set beauty standards all around the world while also offering prime advertising opportunities for companies. This zine will trace the evolution of beauty and advertising practices from magazines to Instagram to BeReal.
For decades, media has played a huge role in influencing culture, whether it was through traditional print media like books, newspapers, and magazines or through digital formats like radio, film, and television. What people read or see in the media helps inform their understanding of the world, especially when it comes to areas they are not exposed to in everyday life. David Croteau and William Hoynes state, “the media are the dominant social institution in contemporary society” (2019, p28). Media determines people’s likes and dislikes and highlights what is popular in society. It curates a set of common beliefs and ideals among large groups
In the past ten years, social media has risen as a core form of media, but before there were social media, there were magazines. Steven Lomazow, a doctor and magazine collector, told the New Yorker, “the best way to think about magazines is as the analog Internet—they’d foster communities of people, just like on social networks” (McGreevy, 2021). Before technology made smartphones possible, magazines were a major driver of conversations and group thought. Because magazines cover specific sectors like fashion, architecture, or nature, people could choose what topics they wanted to focus on based on their interests. From there, they were able to read about what was
From there, they were able to read about what was trending in their areas of interest and be brought together with people of similar interests. In the same way that social networks generate conversation now, people talked about the articles or ads they saw in magazines with others who also read the same publication.
Because magazines had such a large impact on society, the images depicted on their covers and within their pages were a key factor in setting beauty standards. When studying fashion and beauty magazines around the world, researchers found that “the nationality of cover models demonstrated the domination of western fashion and beauty culture” (Yan and Bissell, 2014). Therefore, what was considered pretty makeup, stylish clothing, or the ideal body shape in countries like the United States became globalized and valued as more beautiful in other nations as well.
Additionally, many of the women featured in magazines “were coded as being…conspicuously thin,” and the stories highlighted by magazines “indicated a primary focus on external beauty” (Yan and Bissell, 2014). When looking at pictures of women from the 90s and early 2000s, the standards prevalent in fashion magazines can be found with women wearing clothing that accentuates their thin waists.
Moreover, magazines were a hotspot for businesses to advertise their products. Long before the use of algorithms to target specific
markets with ads, magazines were a great way for companies to make sure their ads were targeted at the right audience because magazines are interest-specific. Fashion brands like Chanel and Gucci are likely to place advertisements in magazines like Vogue and ELLE because the readers of those magazines are clearly interested in beauty and clothing.
Magazines were basically the original form of social media before social media existed. They set the standard for what social media should be with highly curated images, features on the latest fashion trends, celebrities and models on the covers, and advertising opportunities. So much of what social media is today, from influencers to filters to ads, was first introduced by magazines.
1990 Christian Dior Ad
By Kaitlyn Huamani
Pictu e this: it’s a winte y Monday mo ning in 2013, and you pull you pull up Instag am on you iPhone 4 ight as you wake up. Among all of the #ManC ushMonday posts that you we e bound to see that mo ning a e photos of latte a t, p etty sunsets that you f iends saw the night befo e, and a selfie with a snowman. Instag am was a place of f ee-flowing photos and online ove sha ing. The blissful days of #IWokeUpLikeThis and using inspi ational uotes as photo captions we e in full bloom, long befo e the flow of hype -cu ated, PhotoShopped content that would come in late yea s.
When Instag am was eleased to the public in 2010, it was designed to be an online space fo people to sha e photos with f iends and family The app was built by Instag am ' s c eato s using featu es f om an ea lie endition of the app that was called “Bu bn” and featu ed a host of othe functions and featu es When the c eato s Kevin Syst om and Mike K iege noticed the photosha ing featu e on Bu bn was its most popula featu e, they decided to dive into the p oject that would eventually become Instag am. They settled on the name, a po tmanteau of “instant” and “teleg am” that Syst om liked because it sounded “came a-y” (Ma kowitz, 2012).
At its inception, Instag am was simply meant to be a way to stay connected with loved ones nea and fa while keeping up with mode n technology. The app hadn’t made a cent in evenue and only employed about a dozen people befo e Facebook ac ui ed it in 2012 (Ma kowitz, 2012). Ove 10 yea s late , this concept is a distant memo y f om the media giant that Instag am is today.
Today, Instag am has about 1 4 billion wo ldwide use s (Kemp, 2022) It dominates the social media landscape and has evolved to become a nea ly essential pa t of daily life fo many It has fa mo e advanced featu es today than it did in its ea ly yea s, some of
which include Sto ies, Reels, the Explo e page, and the Shop page. Each of these featu es pulls away f om the o iginal goal of the app to sha e and view photos posted by people you actually know.
With all of its development and p og ess, Instag am has also faced intense c iticism f om use s and even f om psychological expe ts. One of the featu es of Instag am that can make it ha mful to use s in its cu ent state is its “addictive natu e,” acco ding to leading expe ts who spoke with the Ame ican Psychological Association (Ab ams, 2021). Without any “stopping cues” that nudge people to close out of the app, they get a “bottomless” st eam of content and could be on the app fo hou s on end eve y single day. This endless sc oll cont ibutes to the addictive uality of the app And with mo e f e uent usage, the e is also a st ong co elation between use and negative moods and anxiety, and wo sened body image (Ab ams, 2021)
While much of the esea ch about Instag am’s psychological impacts is co elational, the e a e so many studies that have found simila associations, and the few expe imental studies that have been conducted about this topic have affi med the co elation. Anecdotal evidence, as well, is st ongly convincing. Talk to any membe of Gen-Z, and they will most likely be able to easily ecall a time when using Instag am led to social compa ison, inc eased anxiety, dec eased self-image, o even wo se. Additionally, as magazines once shaped beauty and lifestyle standa ds, Instag am has now taken ove and c eated ve y specific and un ealistic standa ds and aesthetics that can impact use s’ mental health o self-image. The “digitally optimized appea ances” fo women usually include eu ocent ic facial featu es, long eyelashes, big lips, and a slim nose (Tenba ge, 2021).
The p ominence of these featu es can be damaging fo viewe s because it establishes this look (that is unattainable fo many) as the “ideal” appea ance, and casts anything outside of that appea ance as less than ideal.
Use s began to notice that these featu es and cultu al byp oducts of Instag am we e ha mful, and they changed the way they inte acted with the app acco dingly. Hashtags like #MakeInstag amCasualAgain sta ted t ending and with time, they gained huge followings. Use s wanted to move towa ds the comfo table and less-cu ated feeds that Instag am enjoyed in the ea ly 2010s. This desi e to change the cultu e of Instag am is also evident th ough the su ge of the “photo dump” movement, which entails posting a oundup of photos that you like, even if they might not match aesthetically o if you don’t look you absolute best. It’s meant to be a mo e honest fo m of posting online, and many use s a e moving towa ds this kind of content on thei pe sonal accounts, including influence s like Emma Chambe lain
ed the self as p. See ess the Real is ging online cultu e.
BeReal ma kets itself as an antidote to the ha mful effects of the social media platfo ms that came befo e it. The app desc iption eads “not anothe social netwo k” with the tagline “No bullshit. No ads.” While the app’s attempt at distancing itself f om its competito s is st ong, not even one yea f om its depa tu e f om obscu ity, the app has fallen into the inevitable t aps and cycles of its p edecesso s.
This phenomenon is called “ eactive dynamism” whe e an eme ging app claims to be mo e authentic than its counte pa ts but ultimately falls into the same patte ns and behavio s that they o iginally ejected (Salisbu y, 2017).
One of the many ways in which BeReal fails to meet its mission statement lies in the p evalence of adve tisements despite the app’s ave sion to them. B ands like Chipotle and e.l.f. Cosmetics managed to sneak thei way onto the app with p omotions and coupon codes. In esponse, BeReal put a limit to the numbe of f iends use s can have which minimized the numbe of eyes on adve tisements.
Howeve , these incidents p oved that in the age of Facebook Ma ketplace and Instag am’s shop featu e, no app is safe f om the hands of majo co po ations. Like Youtube, BeReal is “favo ing content aligned with adve tise s’ demands and desi es in ways that un cont a y to pa ticipato y and open conceptions of the platfo m” (Bishop, 2018).
Big b ands and use s alike have been able to hijack BeReal and its goal of no malizing authenticity. While the app andomly sends out notifications to post with a st ict two-minute time limit, use s tend to delibe ately eject and igno e these guidelines. Even though the app notifies f iends if use s posted late, this doesn’t stop use s f om cheating the system. Many, including myself, wait fo thei days to become inte esting to post the pe fect BeReal.
This p omotes the same values as p esent-day Instag am: depictions of a life that’s cu ated and aesthetically pleasing athe than ugly and mundane. Even with the afo ementioned calls to #MakeInstag amCasualAgain, the same ha mful effects of social media on young women a e p esent in calls to be authentic.
Pa t of BeReal’s failu e to einvent the social media wheel is not its own fault. BeReal’s use base is p ima ily Gen-Z, a demog aphic that doesn’t know a wo ld without social media. Popula apps’ algo ithms and use no ms a e ing ained into Gen Z’s psyches. When given the task to eject lea ned posting and sha ing behavio s, we f eeze and then default to what we know. This involves intentionally cu ating and pe fo ming ou lives in a way that is familia to us. Despite BeReal’s “pe fo mativity shaming” by notifying othe s when you’ve posted late, Gen-Z’s desi e to fit into the aesthetic standa ds set by apps like Instag am t ump any u ges to be t uly authentic (Duffy, 2022).
While all eyes a e still on BeReal in late 2022, it’s ha d to say how much longe the app will keep its 3.93 million use s hooked without adding new featu es o succumbing to adve tise s (L. Ceci, 2022). If the app’s develope s t uly believe and adhe e to thei mission statement, they isk BeReal falling back into obscu ity once the next vi al app makes its way to cente stage. If they let the app follow the same g owth model t ajecto y as Instag am o TikTok, BeReal may be he e to stay—but it ce tainly won’t look any diffe ent f om its ivals the app once heavily c iticized.
Croteau, David and William Hoynes “Media/Society in a Digital World ” Media/Society: Technology, Industries, Content, and Users, 2019, p25-51 *
McGreevy, Nora. “How Magazines Helped Shape American History.” Smithsonian Magazine, 23 February 2021, https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-magazines-shaped-ushistory-180977069/
“Top 10 Benefits of Magazine Advertising.” Pulse Magazine, 23 July 2019, https://www.pulsemagazine.co.uk/blogs-articles/top-10-benefits-ofmagazine-advertising/.
Yan, Yan, and Kim Bissell. “The Globalization of Beauty: How Is Ideal Beauty Influenced by Globally Published Fashion and Beauty Magazines?” Journal of Intercultural Communication Research, vol. 43, no. 3, 2014, pp. 194–214, https://doi.org/10.1080/17475759.2014.917432.
Ab ams, Za a “How Can We Minimize Instag am ' s Ha mful Effects?” Monitor on Psychology, Ame ican Psychological Association, 2 Dec 2021, www apa o g/monito /2022/03/featu e-minimize-instag am-effects
Kemp, Simon “The Latest Instag am Statistics: Eve ything You Need to Know ” DataReportal, Kepios, 15 Aug 2022, https://data epo tal.com/essential-instag am-stats.
Ma kowitz, E ic. “How Instag am G ew f om Fou s ua e Knock-off to $1 Billion ... - Inc.com.” Inc., Mansueto Ventu es, 10 Ap . 2012, www.inc.com/e ic-ma kowitz/life-and-times-of-instag am-the-completeo iginal-sto y.html.
Tenbarge, Kat. “Sorry, Bella Poarch, This Is 'Build a b*Tch'.” The Kids Aren't Alright, Substack, 16 May 2021, https://kidsarentalright.substack.com/p/sorry-bella-poarch-this-is-build.*
Bishop, Sophie. “Anxiety, Panic and Self-Optimization.” Convergence: The International Journal of Research into New Media Technologies, vol. 24, no. 1, 2018, pp. 69–84., https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/1354856517736978.*
Ceci, L. “Topic: BeReal.” Statista, https://www.statista.com/topics/10096/bereal/#topicOverview.
Duffy, Brooke Erin “BeReal and the Doomed Quest for Online Authenticity ” Wired, Conde Nast, 5 Aug 2022, https://www wired com/story/bereal-doomed-online-authenticity/
Salisbury, Meredith, and Jefferson D. Pooley. “The #Nofilter Self: The Contest for Authenticity among Social Networking Sites, 2002–2016.” MDPI, Multidisciplinary Digital Publishing Institute, 20 Jan. 2017, https://www.mdpi.com/2076-0760/6/1/10/htm.
* Course readings