A French society media platform launched by Alexis Barreyat in 2020, Be realistic is attracting dedicated users on US university campuses after gaining popularity abroad. Essentially, BeReal sends users a reminder at a random time each day, urging them to take a photo and send it to their friends. You only have two minutes to respond and a two-photo collage will be taken from your front and rear cameras.
Instagram’s pristine, curated aesthetic has been declared dead time and again, and BeReal capitalizes on a constant quest for authenticity on social media, whatever that means. The company has received millions of dollars from investors such as Andreessen Horowitza well-known Silicon Valley player who has thrown cash at Clubhouse, OpenSea and Substack in recent years.
In February, Harvard student Mariah Norman made a statement about pouring photos in Instagram an attempt to overcome so orthodox that the president does it. She was mesmerized by the unfiltered feed on BeReal and wrote, “Since there’s no time to find that perfect pose or setting, the content you engage with on the app is mundane but extremely authentic and creative.” Norman also mentioned that BeReal sponsored a party with free admission for Harvard students who interacted with the app.
Jules Kourelakos, a student at Duke University, shown that although BeReal appears to be less effective than other social media options, users continue to capture a set version of themselves. While searching for authenticity online may be fruitless, the app is well designed and easy to use.
You need an account to start using BeReal, available for iPhone and Android. Once you’ve downloaded the app, it will ask for access to your contacts in order to connect with friends who may have used the service (you can opt out, if you want.) Unless Rolodex’s you have a full range of trend gauges, many of your friends may not be using the platform yet. The app will ask for your name, date of birth and phone number. Enabling time-sensitive notifications is important if you want to post within two minutes daily.
While setting up an account, BeReal encourages new users to snap their first post. Your posts per day is the amount to see your friends’ images or posts on the discovery feed. Don’t want to post? Well, you’ll have to make time for another app, as everyone’s photos won’t be accessible on BeReal until you contribute for the day. Users are allowed to share timestamped photos after the window has passed, but all photos are treated as late homework with a “15 minutes late” disclaimer at the top.
To create a post, the app needs access to your smartphone’s camera. After flipping the camera around to see both sides with the reverse button and turning on the flash, if necessary, by tapping the lightning bolt, tap the circle in the bottom center of the screen to take your photo. Even for the late BeReals, a two-minute timer shows up on the screen and counts down when you take (or re-take) the photo.
