Today we’ll explain what BeReal is and why it’s causing a huge stir among the younger generation. We’ll also look at how to use the app and what makes it unique.

Instagram’s impeccably organized aesthetic has repeatedly been declared dead, and BeReal takes advantage of social media’s endless search for authenticity. In recent years, Andreessen Horowitz, a prominent Silicon Valley player who has invested in Clubhouse, OpenSea and Substack, among others, has given BeReal millions of dollars.

WHAT IT BEREAL?

So what is BeReal? Be Real is a social network created in 2020 by Alexis Barrejat. After growing in popularity around the world, BeReal has found a following among dedicated users on college campuses in the United States.

Basically, BeReal sends you a notification at a random time each day asking you to take a picture and share it with your friends. You only have two minutes to respond, and the front and back cameras are used to create a collage of the two photos.

HOW TO USE BEREAL?

Now that we know what BeReal is, we can focus on how to use it. To get started with BeReal, you will need an account. Once you download the program, it will request access to your contacts to contact friends who may already be using the service.

If your Rolodex is not filled with trendsetters, many of your friends may not yet be using the platform. The app will ask for your name, birthday and phone number. If you want to post every day for two minutes, leave time-dependent notifications turned on.

To join, BeReal encourages new users to post their first content immediately. The Discovery Feed is a pay-per-view of your friends’ photos and posts. Don’t want to share anything?

You’ll have to spend time on another app, because all images won’t be available in BeReal until you contribute during the day. Users can upload photos with a time stamp after the deadline, but all images are considered overdue homework with a “15 minutes late” warning at the top.

HOW DO I POST TO THE BEREAL?

The app requires access to your smartphone camera to create a publication. To view both sides with the reverse button and to turn on the flash if necessary, tap the circle in the bottom middle of the screen to take photos. Even the later BeReals have a two-minute timer on the screen and count down while you take or redo photos.

People can leave RealMojis on the BeReal. Friends’ comments are not limited to the discovery feed, while strangers’ comments are limited to RealMojis. Unlike TikTok or Instagram, content is removed from the feed every day and replaced with a new piece of content. Users can save previously uploaded content using the “Memories” features, and old photos are not posted online.

What can quickly become an anxiety-inducing race against time on BeReal is skillfully turned into a low-stakes publishing experience. For example, users may feel less internal pressure to take a beautiful photo because only a limited number of re-shots are possible within 120 seconds.

A curious detail of BeReal is that you can only post pictures once a day. And only when the service itself decides. When this happens, you will receive a notification with the requirement to launch the application and take a picture of the main camera and the front camera at the same time.

Despite the fact that the picture is taken on two cameras almost at once, there is a trigger moment of about 1 second, when you can change the position of the smartphone and shoot yourself a little more favorably.

Basically, you can not take a picture, but then you will not have the opportunity to see what others have shot. That’s the punishment for those who don’t want to be honest and show what they see in front of them.

I wouldn’t say it’s a very disciplined action, but it activates brainstorming mode in your head. After all, you have only 2 minutes to take a picture so that the frame was not scattered things and unmade bed.

The notification about the picture comes to all at the same time. I also figured it could come at any time, because several times I got nighttime pics in my feed. That is, people were really asleep when BeReal sent them the notification, and you can see it in their sleepy and even slightly frightened faces. I’ve never been to a night notice, but I doubt I would have woken up and run to take pictures. So it’s more likely that I would have been fined.

There are no filters in BeReal either, as you understand, because the main message of the service is to be as it is, unadorned. This is a very interesting approach, because the capabilities of your camera come first. If it shoots well, you’ll see it, and if it shoots badly, you’ll see it too.

A SOCIAL NETWORK WITH REAL PHOTOS

BeReal has two feeds of posts. One is personal and the other is shared. In the personal one, you can only see what your friends post. You can find them by giving the app access to your contacts list.

And the public one is formed from the photos of all the users who use BeReal. You can view, rate and comment on their photos. And you can rate them using Real Moji. This is a picture of you with a particular emoji.

BeReal not only relies on your Instagram photo sharing feed, but also takes advantage of the ephemeral nature of Snapchat by reloading your feed daily. Like Snapchat, the app stores your previous entries in “Memories,” which only you have access to.

The app does create some privacy issues. It automatically publishes your location along with your photo unless you turn that feature off in your settings, and it has its own version of Snapmaps.

Because you post every day, the app can accumulate data that paints a picture of your habits, unlike its competitors. The app promises not to sell your data to third parties, but this has raised some concerns among its users.

One of the ways to make money on Bereal can be the offers from CPA networks.

Perhaps the appeal of the brand-new social media platform is that it has not been overrun with nosy friends of friends, old colleagues and celebrities. Your feed still feels intimate, and in today’s social media landscape, that seems radical.

Because once you start seeing unfiltered selfies from people you barely know, the app loses all its charm and potential.