163 - You got to BeReal 📸
Hey there, !
I’ve been using BeReal for a few months now - if you haven’t heard of it, it’s the new GenZ social network that works like this:
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Once a day at a random time, there’ll be a notification to take your BeReal photo.
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You open up the app, take a photo with your back camera, and then one with your front camera, and then post it - supposedly at the time the notification comes in so you’re…’being real’!
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You can then see what other people have posted at the same time!
There are things I love about this, and things I don’t. Let’s go through them:
Pros:
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Pro: you have to contribute to the social network to be part of the social network. This is a great idea - it means that you don’t have an empty network, and you’re prevented from just mindless, passive consumption. You have to choose to be actively contribute to see what others are doing!
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Pro: you only get one notification a day, which means you don’t get overwhelmed by hearing about posts over and over and over again.
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Pro: it’s in the social network phase of ‘not shit yet’, where the advertisers and influencers haven’t found a way to monetize the crap out of it, so it’s still just wholesome looking-at-what-your-friends-are-doing time, rather than the normal social media cesspool.
Cons:
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Con: there isn’t much ongoing engagement once you’ve seen what everyone is doing that day - kind of like Snapchat, it starts a conversation, but that doesn’t always lead anywhere.
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Con: not sure if this is a con for everyone, but it’s not really super shareable across other channels, and not everyone is on it yet, which means that you’re contributing to a social network of opted-in BeReal users. There’s a Discovery tab if you want to go look, but that’s pretty boring too, since everyone is taking pictures of just…random slices of their day on demand. ‘Being real’ can be pretty boring :D
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Con: it’s a super basic app - the layout is pretty crap and doesn’t have that many features, which means it’s not as slick as any other app you might want to spend your time on.
To be honest, I love it mainly because it’s not clogged up with crap yet, and I can also see the daily comings and goings of friends and family overseas. Sometimes you just need those little moments of connection that you can talk about next time with each other.
Chat soon :)
Let me know if you have any feedback for the newsletter!
✔️Real Life Recommendations
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Some Like It Hot - a classic 1959 crime comedy starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis and Jack Lemmon. A fantastic b&w film from the time, and most of it holds up over time, telling the story of two musicians who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, having to dress up as women to escape Chicago after witnessing a murder. It’s a simple, easy film with some great writing in terms of setting up characters and situations to pull the comedy out of, and though there are some dicey scenes, it’s quite funny nonetheless. Highly recommended!
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Country Cob Bakery - delightful pie place I’ve been waiting to go to for a long time - went out to the original bakery in Kyneton to try their pies! I believe they also have stores in Springvale and a pop-up opening soon in Chadstone? Tried the award-winning beef pie (DELICIOUS), the satay seafood (weird but also delicious!), the Beef BBQ Mac and Cheese (good but with a weird texture) and the Singapore Chilli Crab (better than expected). They had such a wide variety of pies - we could only try a couple but it was still awesome - highly recommended as well!
🚌 Adventures on the Information Super-Highway
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Which emoji scissors close - did you ever think about this? Neither did I, until I came across this article!
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Lose the Very - This was a
very coolneat website to help increase myvery smallmodest vocabulary! -
What’s wrong with medieval pigs in videogames? - a lot more than I thought LOL. Apparently they were much more boar-like, rather than pink and fat. Weird links this week :D