Are You Being for Real on BeReal?

The new social media app, BeReal, has become increasingly popular. Basically, the app gives you a two minute window each day at different times to take a picture of whatever you’re doing using the front and back camera. If you take a picture after two minutes then it is considered late.

Alexis Barreyet founded the app in France in December 2019 but it didn’t become popular until this year.

According to the digital analytics platform, Sensor Tower, July was BeReal’s biggest month yet. The app downloads have increased by 86% from June to July. 

BeReal doesn’t have any ads as of now but some brands like Pacsun, Kiehl’s, and e.l.f. Cosmetics, have joined the platform to try and bring attention to their storess. They do this by adding a caption to their BeReal in order to promote their products.

Supposedly, BeReal is “anti-Instagram” because you are only allowed one picture each day. While you are able to redo some photos, the whole point is to be real, not fake. BeReal doesn’t have an option for you to edit or alter your picture which makes it more realistic than other social media platforms. It does, however, allow you to delete your BeReal. But once you delete it you aren’t allowed to do it again until the next BeReal notification.

According to the Apple App Store, “BeReal is your chance to show your friends who you really are, for once.” On this app, you don’t have to worry about how many followers or how many views you get, it’s all about connecting with your friends and showing authentic pictures.

So if you plan on getting famous or going viral, I don’t recommend BeReal for you.

Other social media platforms like Instagram and Tiktok have borrowed BeReal’s idea of capturing a moment of your day and added it to their apps.

Instagram has “Candid Challenges” that post on a user’s story and don’t show up in the feed. They also use the dual camera as BeReal does as well as giving the user a certain time to take the picture. The basic idea of “Candid Challenges” is the same as BeReal.

Like BeReal and Instagram, TikTok uses a “TikTok Now” feature which allows users to record a 10-second video or take a picture using the front and back camera to share with their friends.

As you can see, BeReal started a trend of using the front and back cameras that many other platforms have incorporated into their apps.

Although, BeReal has become popular it’s not guaranteed that it will stay that way.

The first few weeks that you have BeReal, it can be fun and entertaining. But, after a while, it gets repetitive and a little mundane.

This is the case for many users. Grace Kozaczka, a BeReal user, says that she enjoys BeReal when she’s hanging out with her friends but does admit that it sometimes gets annoying.

When the BeReal notification pops up you don’t have to click on it right away. You could wait until you have makeup on or when you’re doing something more fun than sitting alone doing homework. So sometimes the idea of “being real” doesn’t exactly work.

BeReal is still a fairly new app and has many bugs and glitches to be corrected. For example, sometimes when you take your BeReal it fails to send and gets taken down unnoticeably.

BeReal will have to work out these kinks in order for the app to stay at the top of the pyramid.