Twitter, Instagram, TikTok – you name it, social media apps are more important than ever in everyday life. However, every once in a while a new app comes along that breaks the mold and becomes as popular as anything before it.
And now it’s the turn of BeReal, an application developed by French tech duo Alexis Barreyat and Kevin Perreau that requires you to get rid of those filters and return to the real world.
Launched in 2020, BeReal has become the latest mobile app to make a splash among youth and has been acclaimed by the industry for its mission statement.
Although BeReal has been on the market for over two years, this year its popularity has surged, seeing a 315% increase in downloads since January, and is now hot on the heels of the world’s most downloaded apps like Instagram and Snapchat.
What is BeReal
BeReal is a social media app that encourages users to post unfiltered photos of themselves once a day, with the app aiming to encourage people to be more authentic, remove heavily filtered photos and ask them to present themselves that way as they are at this moment.
How does the BeReal app work?
Once downloaded, at any point during the day, users will receive a notification telling them it’s “Time for BeReal”.
At that moment, the app opens a two-minute window for the user to post a picture of what they’re doing. The camera takes two photos – one with your front camera and one with your back camera – so users can see exactly what you were up to in those two minutes.
The purpose is to capture an authentic, unfiltered snapshot of a user’s life, as opposed to a filtered, altered, and less-authentic snapshot that’s more common on apps like Instagram.
You can choose to share your image publicly, but only those who also shared a BeReal image during that day’s image window will be able to see it.
What happens if you don’t post to BeReal within two minutes?
Basically nothing. You can post photos “late” if you want and the only penalty will be that users will see how late you posted.
How do I delete a BeReal
Although it defies the purpose of the app, there is an option to delete a BeReal post if you wish.
With the app, you can repeat a BeReal photo as many times as you like during the two minutes. Once you’ve posted the photo, the only thing you can do is delete and retake it once.
If you want to delete your post, just find the post you want to delete and tap the three dots to the right of the location and time. Once the pop-up window appears, tap on “Delete my BeReal”.
