You’re lying in bed doing nothing. Suddenly, your phone lights up. “2 min left to capture a BeReal and see what your friends are up to!” You quickly grab your phone and launch the app. You can’t be late on posting, so you quickly snap a photo and send it.
BeReal is an app where you can post what you’re doing at that exact moment in the day. The way it works is simple; it’s in the name: be real. At a random point in the day, everyone around the world who have the app gets a notification that it is time to “be real.” From the second you get the notification, it counts down two minutes, and you have two minutes to capture yourself in the exact moment. If you post late, it shows up for other users.
BeReal is different from other apps. It’s unique as it is unlike apps such as Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok. There are no filters, and nothing you can do to change your face or body. It is all-natural in the camera, and it does not smooth over your face as most apps do after taking a picture.
A great part of BeReal is that you can see what everyone thinks. Everyone has an option to “react” to someone else’s BeReal. This option, of course, only works if you’ve already posted your BeReal for the day since the app doesn’t allow you to see anyone’s pictures until you posted yours. To react to someone’s post, you can’t just give a “heart” or “thumbs up”. You must take a selfie of your reaction inside a circle template on the app. Different emojis go along with the templates you can choose from, like a thumbs up or surprised emoji.
For a lot of people, Bereal is a great way to socialize and get a peek into your friends’ daily lives. Others may even call it a way of socializing verbally.
“It gives me a quick look into people’s real and daily lives that I might not have even known if I didn’t use the app,” sophomore Hope Sirinides says.
BeReal’s sole purpose is to do just that. That’s why most people got the app in the first place, apart from it currently trending on TikTok. Of course, Instagram and Snapchat are apps where you can get a look at what your friends may be doing, but BeReal lets you see the exact moment, and location.
As there are positives, there are always negatives. Even though the app is very liked because of its purpose, many complain during the times it goes off.
“..it’s really random and often it’s not when I’m doing anything fun,” sophomore Sophia Angermund says.
The timing of BeReal notifications are very random. It could go off as late as 12:30 p.m. or as early as 8:30 a.m. Lots of users will usually ignore the notification if they aren’t doing something interesting, and post at a later time when they are.
“If I’m just sitting at home doing homework or something, I usually just don’t do my BeReal. In that case, I would just save it for school the next day,” Angermund says.
On the other hand, some people might think that BeReal is just not worth their time.
“I feel like it’s just one of those apps that I don’t need.” Sophomore Shreyasi Sharma says.
Either way, no matter how you may feel, BeReal is all around nowadays; Tiktok, Snapchat, and even at school! It’s the new Snapchat and Instagram, but healthier, since its purpose is to reduce beauty expectations throughout social media.
