Social media apps encourage us to share certain parts of our lives and particular versions of our selves. Judging by Facebook, you’d think everyone you know is in a happy, healthy relationship—it’s weird to post a status update saying you’re lonely or pining for your ex. Instagram’s no different: You share a pic of your meal at the hot new brunch spot, not the French-bread pizza you just warmed in the microwave.

You might call this phenomenon the rise of the Curated Self. Beme, a new social app, was designed as its antidote.

The video-sharing platform was created by Casey Neistat, a rakish YouTube star whose artfully off-the-cuff videos have garnered millions of views. In a video introducing Beme, Neistat says the prevailing social networks trade in a “highly sculpted, calculated, calibrated version of who we are.” He and his team wanted to build something different, a social app that lets people share experiences without sculpting or scrutinizing them on-screen before they’re shared.

The most interesting thing about Beme, which Neistat created with Matt Hackett, a former VP of engineering at Tumblr, is how its mission statement manifests as interaction. To record a clip, you simply hold your phone to your chest. At that point, you hear a beep, which means the app is recording. After a few seconds, you hear another beep, signaling that the recording is complete and the clip automatically posted. Your friends see your “beme” in their feed; after they watch it once, it disappears. (Beme’s available on an invite-only basis; Neistat encourages people to wait for the next release to download.)

For most of us, authenticity is boring. Most of my meals aren’t worth showing off. Most of the sunsets I see aren’t particularly brilliant.

Effectively, the app uses the iPhone’s proximity sensor as a substitute for a record button. It’s a clever bit of interaction design that elegantly solves some problems Neistat has with traditional social apps. For one, it eliminates the opportunity to compose your shot just so and review your footage before sharing it. Just as important, as Neistat points out in the video, Beme lets you keep your eyes on the sunset or the concert or whatever it is you’re sharing. In this way, Beme’s design is pretty radical: It’s one of the few smartphone apps with functionality built around the idea of limiting how much of our experience is mediated by our smartphones.

This is a worthwhile goal, but there may be unexpected difficulties in upending social media orthodoxy. For one thing, there’s a fundamental flaw with Beme’s novel method of recording. As tech writer Casey Johnston quickly noted, “It’s not as simple as ‘pressing the phone to your chest,’ since my chest, like that of many women, is not flat.” Beme, she says, “like so many other products of tech startups, is just another thing that women have to put more thought into using than the men it was designed by.”

But a more vexing problem might be something closer to the heart of sharing itself. Namely, that for most of us, authenticity is boring. Most of my meals aren’t worth showing off. Most of the sunsets I see aren’t particularly brilliant. This is why Instagram first blew up, after all: Its filters made our ordinary lives look extraordinary. This same appeal holds true for many of today’s most popular social apps. Life is usually more interesting when it’s edited and scrutinized before being rebroadcast.

Here, it’s worth remembering who created Beme in the first place. Neistat amassed his YouTube audience with a terrific diversity of video exploits. Popular clips from his channel show him visiting an extravagant indoor waterpark in Germany, snowboarding through the streets of New Yor behind a Jeep, spray-painting his new Apple Watch gold.

Casey Neistat’s affable with an anti-authoritarian streak—a bit like a selfie-shooting Han Solo. If we were all Casey Neistat, Beme would be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, we’re not.

The videos are well-made, but it’s not slick production that attract viewers. It’s Neistat. He’s got one of those personalities that draw you in. He’s affable with an anti-authoritarian streak—a bit like a selfie-shooting Han Solo. The point is this: Neistat is an interesting dude who lives an interesting life. He’s certainly more interesting than I am, and in terms of being able to produce short, context-free video clips that I’d want to watch, he’s probably more interesting than most of my friends. If we were all Casey Neistat, Beme would be a slam dunk. Unfortunately, we’re not.

Facebook Paper, another pioneering social app, suffered a similar problem. The app, which sought to elevate the Facebook feed to something closer to a digital magazine, was built by a team led by Mike Matas, a celebrated designer who helped shape the software for the first iPhone. And indeed, if you’re friends with Matas on Facebook, Paper looks phenomenal—just watch this video that he created showing a year of his Facebook highlights as viewed through the app.

The problem is the average Facebook post isn’t an artful shot of a waterfall glimpsed on a hike through the tropics. It’s a grainy picture of a guy you knew in high school or a link to a Huffington Post article. Not really magazine-quality stuff. This is why Paper, despite its lavish attention to detail, never really worked. It was an extremely attractive container for largely unattractive content.

Maybe there’s some sort of axiom we can draw from this. While there’s undoubtedly a great need for social platforms that allow for intimacy, or vulnerability, or just plain-old authenticity, perhaps the most popular social-media apps always will be those that allow the greatest number of people to feel like they live the most interesting lives. We may not like the digital culture that has given rise to the Curated Self, but it’s easy to see why it’s been so appealing. We all like to pretend we’re the star of a movie now and then, even if we’re not cut out for a documentary.