When the creator of Beme, a video-based social network predicated on raw life footage, asks me to be realer, my first reaction is to be a little insulted. My Snaps are not to be trampled on. My Insta shots are on point.

But there's rhyme, reason, and a little sadness to what he and some other social network founders have said about what modernity has done to our brand of authenticity. What a lot of them are saying is this: we are not Facebook. You are safe from the invisible hand of the market here. What you're sharing on Snapchat, Instagram, etc., is essentially a gussied-up version of reality—here's a place where you can have a real conversation.

The app works like this. You join up (it's in beta, but you can trawl Twitter for an invite code), and you're asked to follow people. To post an update you press the phone's screen against your body. It records, and when you pull it off, the app posts without a chance to review the footage. The video can only be viewed once by any one user, and then it's gone.

The conceit is pretty simple: to break the pattern of over-tailored and over-garnished content, you have to limit the tools people have to make it. It's Snapchat with no review screen and #nofilter, cinéma vérité for the app-tethered age.