Are You Being Real?

Have you ever found yourself posting unrealistically on social media? Have you found yourself spending hours scrolling and picking out what pictures to post? BeReal is working on changing this habit for many people.

BeReal is a French social media app founded in 2020 by Alexis Barreyat. It didn’t gain much attention until mid-2022. As of August 2022, it has over 10 million daily users. BeReal is focused on sharing authentic photos. Once a day at a random time the app sends out a notification to all users at the same time prompting them to take their BeReal. It takes a photo on both their front and back camera to show exactly what they are doing at the time. 

After taking your BeReal, you can see your friends’ posts and what they are doing. What makes BeReal different from other social media is there are no influencers or celebrities on the app. To be         

able to see someone’s posts, you need to be mutual friends with each other on the app. You also can’t see how many friends people have, or see their BeReals after the next day’s one has come out. 

When the BeReal notification goes off, you have 2 minutes to post before it’s marked as posted late. You can see how late people posted their BeReals and how many times they retook them. You can interact with your friends by reacting with emojis and commenting on their BeReals. 

Although the app is used by many people, some people aren’t participating in the trend. 16 teenagers were asked if they had BeReal, and 14 out of the 16 had the app, but some didn’t participate every day in posting on the app. TRHS student Abie Lakin was asked why she doesn’t have BeReal and said “It’s just not my first priority like I just don’t care.” 

Without being able to see followers, likes, ads, or celebrities, BeReal is known to be a simple but fun photo-sharing social media app to see your friends’ posts and not waste your time scrolling for hours and hours.