You may have heard of famous Youtuber Casey Neistat. Neistat is known for his fearless DIY-style videos. In case you didn’t know, this is the guy who spray-painted an Apple Watch. The premise of Neistat’s new social sharing app, Beme, is a familiar one: You’re at a concert, focused on trying to capture the moment so you can post it on Facebook and Instagram. But in doing so, you’re completely taken out of the moment. Casey says, “Instead of seeing the world with your eyes, you’re seeing it through your phone.”
In many respects this is true and Neistat is trying to change all of that.
“Social media is supposed to be a digital or virtual version of who we are as people,” Neistat says in an announcement video for the app. “Instead it’s this highly sculpted, calculated, calibrated version of who we are, told through filters that make our eyes bluer and carefully selected images to portray a version of who we are that doesn’t really resemble the reality of things.”
So how can we correct the situation? With the Beme app, users don’t need to look at their screens to record video. All you have to do is press your phone against your chest and the app uses the iPhone’s proximity sensor to record. Unfortunately the app is only available in iOS at the moment.
To watch a video, hold down a person’s username, like Snapchat. And just like Snapchats, moments (known as Bemes) are ephemeral; they disappear right after you view them. “Everything you see, you see for the first time and the last time,” Neistat says in the video. In fact, have a look for yourself.
