Honestly, I am tired of constantly having an Instagram brain. It takes me at least an hour to post one IG story when I go out, and only ever after careful consideration, countless consultations with friends, and several moments of overthinking do I finally upload it. Yes, I do, in a weird sense, enjoy the process, but after a certain point, it feels mentally draining. As if I’m constantly chasing the perfect, flawless version of myself. For years, social media has asked us to look effortless, but never actually be effortless. The perfect photo dump, the polished night-out mirror selfie, the casual lunch picture. Our social media has become a stage of its own, carefully rehearsed and curated to perfection. Lately, though, the zeitgeist is going against the grain again. Instead of polished feeds, the collective appetite is one leaning towards the messy, unfiltered, and raw aspects of ourselves.
It is for the same reason BeReal went viral in 2022. At its peak, the French app felt like a breath of fresh air from the heavily curated profiles. You received a notification, took a photo of whatever you were doing, and posted it, whether you were out at dinner or lying in bed doing absolutely nothing. Instagram’s Instants feature follows a similar streak, leaning into quick, unedited sharing without the chance to retake or apply filters. The newest kid on the block? Setlog. The South Korean app that has currently gone viral for all the right reasons. The concept is simple. You create or join a group with your friends, and every hour, the app sends a prompt to record a short video or ‘logs’. At the end of the day, the app stitches them into a short vlog, turning a series of everyday moments into a spontaneous and real film of your life. It takes this desire for authenticity and gives it a more playful approach. The idea is a spirited effort to create an anti-curation, filter-free space.
@yxuann_ Guess our jobs 🤪 Jumping on the setlog trend from Korea with the girls ✨ Just 4 girlies in our 20s surviving through the 9–5 😪💗 @dyantoot @chenliinn @bukeyi #vlog #trend #cute #content #setlog ♬ original sound – 1D&5SOS
The first thing I noticed about Setlog was the interface. The app is bright, colourful, and unapologetically playful. Its design feels less like a polished Instagram feed and more like a personal diary someone has decorated with stickers, transporting me back to my childhood days when my scrapbook and I were inseparable. The fonts scream kid-core, the visuals are adorable, and everything feels intentionally casual.
I downloaded it after my colleague told me to try it out. Soon enough, I was asking my girlfriends to get in on it too. By sheer luck, my first day on Setlog was not one of those monotonous work days. It was the Champions League final, and my friends and I had planned to watch it together. What was meant to be a simple football night quickly escalated into one of those chaotic, impromptu plans that only make sense in retrospect.
Every hourly alert felt like a cue to capture a new memory of the night—a beer tower arriving at the table; my friends screaming at the television; a shaky clip of us walking to the next bar; someone singing into a karaoke mic with great confidence. None of the videos were aesthetically pleasing in the traditional sense; the lighting was terrible, and the angles were unflattering.
But when Setlog stitched those three-second videos together, I was obsessed. The final video felt like a tiny, chaotic documentary of our night. It captured the feeling of the evening better than a single Instagram story ever could. It was not curated enough to be cool, but it was us, in all our messy, imperfect glory. Frankly, this is where the app’s beauty lies. It takes those in-between moments that might not feel all that important, yet somehow immortalises a good day out with my friends, making it feel special and intimate.
What I really appreciated, however was the privacy Setlog afforded me and my friends. Since my logs were meant only for my chosen circle of friends to view, I did not feel pressured always to look put together. I also liked that it allows you to retake a video. Some might argue that this goes against the whole point of being real, but I actually found it comforting. It gave me just enough control without turning the app into another place to play pretend.
A few days in however, I did notice a pattern that felt embarrassingly repetitive. My friends and I are all interning at the moment, which means our daily lives have an uncanny similarity, days full of laptop screens, office desks, cafes, repeat. After all, there are only so many ways to film yourself answering emails that too every hour before you are forced to confront the bitter truth that your life may not be as cinematic as the app suggests. This was followed by a sick week in bed and I stopped posting almost entirely. I was at home, in bed, surviving on medication and looking pallid. Even though only my closest friends would see the clips, I could not bring myself to record them. This is where the harsh reality of the app kicks in: it encourages you to be yourself, but it also reveals the limits of how real you are willing to be. We like authenticity when it comes with eventful plans or a cute outfit. But when that unfiltered realness includes boredom, exhaustion, or doing absolutely nothing worth documenting how ‘fun’ your life is, its appeal is lost.
By now, we know to be wary of the idea of an authentic social media app, since the phrase itself is an oxymoron in our world. We’ll always have that instinct—albeit muted—to look our very best, but at least Setlog offers a gentler, funnier way to be online. It makes the mundane feel lively and spirited, and maybe, in times like these, that’s all we really need.
