It’s time to BeReal
Photo courtesy of Victoria Paquette
October 26, 2022
Would you love to see what all of your friends are doing during the day? Now you can with BeReal! It is an app where you post once a day at a random time that the app chooses each day. You can see what all of your friends are up to, and the post stays up until the next notification when it’s time to BeReal.
BeReal was created by a French entrepreneur named Alexis Barreyat. She officially launched it in December 2019, although not much attention was drawn to the app until August 2022. Since the launch of the app, there have been 43 million downloads and currently around 10 million daily users according to Fox News.
BeReal allows one post a day at a random time of day. You have 2 minutes to post what you are really doing to “be real.” The app takes a photo, both on your front-facing camera and the back-facing camera with 3 seconds in between each photo being snapped. Other users can also see how many times you retake the post to really see if you are being real.
Another feature that attracts people to the app is reactions. If they want to, your friends on the app can react to your posts with pictures they take of themselves at that current moment. These are only able to be seen that day on that post and aren’t visible to anyone after that.
This has drawn many teenagers to the app to see what their friends are up to during the day. Many people don’t like the fake side of social media anymore. A Timberlane senior said, “I don’t know why people edit their pictures, it is mad stupid and just doesn’t make sense when they do that.”
Throughout TRHS, Staff and students gave their opinion on what they think about BeReal. Some were fans of the app; others, not so much. Mr. Horgan said, “I like it, I think it’s fun because it’s just kinda a like what you are doing at the moment because when you do it at the right time it can be kinda funny.” Although, some people are not a fan of this app. TRHS senior, Cody Boucher, is not a fan of the app. He said, “it blows, ” as well as, “it’s not for me”.
Being real is what people love about this app; the app is all about showing normality to the social media side of the world. Being able to see what everyone is doing at a random time of day every day is entertaining.