BeReal or BeReady? Performing Authenticity Online
Last year I did something embarrassing. When BeReal pinged me at 3pm, I was at my desk with unwashed hair, a cold coffee and a half-eaten sandwich. This, supposedly, was the truth about me. Instead of posting, I tidied the desk, brushed my hair and waited for a better moment. I was trying to perform being unperformed.
I wasn’t alone. BeReal promised an unfiltered life, one random notification a day and two minutes to post. Yet people quickly learned that you could post late, retake the shot and curate the “spontaneous” moment. The app built for authenticity became a new stage.
Erving Goffman (1959) wouldn’t have been surprised. He argued that everyday life is a theatre, with a front stage where we manage impressions and decide what we want to bring to the fore; however, the “backstage” is where we relax. BeReal attempted to bring the backstage into the light, but when it is visible, it stops being backstage and becomes just another set.
Marwick and Boyd (2011) help explain why BeReal became so tense and calculated through a ‘context collapse ’. Online friends, family, colleagues and strangers are squashed into one audience. Their research on X (formerly known as Twitter) found that users typically posted online for an ‘imaginary audience’. This is proven by the fact that my tidied desk wasn’t to impress my best friend, who’s seen me at my worst; it was for the faint possibility that someone could judge me. Online identity has shifted into becoming less about self-expression and more about risk management.
Sherry Turkle (1995) studied early online communities and described the internet as a place to try on multiple identities a “decentred” identity that was fluid and experimental. It’s a lovely idea but it almost feels foreign now. Platforms today reward a consistent, recognisable personal brand and experimenting feels like too much of a risk.
Here’s what I think all three are missing. When BeReal ‘went off’, I wasn’t only imagining my audience I was thinking about the app itself. How many friends would it show me to? Where will my late posts be hidden, and how can I increase my engagement? Goffman’s audience could clap or frown, but today’s audience also includes a system that decides who sees the show. We don’t just guess who’s watching. We guess what the code wants, and we adjust ourselves accordingly.
So identity in a digital world isn’t simply expressed. It’s negotiated between three parties: the self, the imagined audience and the algorithm. Goffman gave us the stage, Marwick and boyd showed us the crowd and Turkle gave us the freedom to be many selves. The algorithm now decides which of those selves gets seen. So the next time you post, ask yourself who you’re really posting for. And if the algorithm rewards some versions of you more than others, how much of “you” online is your choice?
Bibliography
Goffman, Erving. Goffman, E. (1959). The presentation of self in everyday life. American Sociological Review, [online] 21(5). doi:10.2307/2089106.
Marwick, A., and Boyd. 2011. ‘I Tweet Honestly, I Tweet Passionately: Twitter Users, Context Collapse, and the Imagined Audience’. New Media & Society 13 (1): 114–33. https://doi.org/https://library-collections-search.westminster.ac.uk/view/action/uresolver.do?operation=resolveService&package_service_id=15107043000003711&institutionId=3711&customerId=3710&VE=true.
Mascheroni, Giovanna. 2025. ‘Turkle, S. (1997). Life on the Screen: Identity in the AgMascheroni, G. (2025). Turkle, S. (1997). life on the screen: Identity in the age of the internet. Simon & Schuster. 352 pP. Communications, [online] 50(3), pp.665–667. doi:10.1515/commun-2024-0121.
