BeReal facts for kids
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| Original author(s) | Alexis Barreyat, Kévin Perreau | ||||
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| Initial release | 2020 | ||||
| Stable release(s) | |||||
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| Written in | Swift (iOS), Kotlin (Android) | ||||
| Platform | iOS 14 or later Android |
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| Available in | 13 languages | ||||
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List of languages
English, Dutch, French, German, Hindi, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish
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BeReal (which means "Be Real") is a French messaging app launched in 2020. It was created by Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau. The app's main idea is to encourage users to share real, unedited photos of their daily life.
Every day, BeReal sends a surprise notification. Users then have just two minutes to take a photo using both their front and back cameras at the same time. This helps people show their friends what they are truly doing at that exact moment, without filters or editing. The app became very popular in 2022 but saw fewer users in 2023.
Contents
How BeReal Started
BeReal was created by Alexis Barreyat and Kévin Perreau. It first came out in 2020. The app became widely known in early 2022. It grew quickly on college campuses, partly because of a program that paid students to promote it.
By August 2022, BeReal had over 10 million people using it every day. By February 2023, this number grew to 13 million daily users. The app also received money from investors to help it grow. In May 2022, it was valued at about $600 million.
On July 25, 2022, BeReal became the most downloaded free app on Apple's App Store. It stayed at the top until September 2022. Apple also named BeReal the iPhone App of the Year in 2022.
However, by spring 2023, the number of daily users dropped to about 6 million. In June 2024, a French company called Voodoo bought BeReal. Alexis Barreyat, one of the creators, will leave the company after a short time.
What BeReal Does
Once a day, BeReal sends a notification to all its users at the same time. This tells them they have a two-minute window to post. Users need to take a "BeReal," which is a photo or short video. It uses both the front and back cameras at the same time. This shows what you are doing right then. You can also add a short caption. The two-minute window changes each day, so you never know when it will happen!
Here are some cool things about BeReal:
- You cannot see your friends' BeReals from the current day until you post your own.
- If you post your BeReal after the two-minute window, the app shows how late you were.
- Other users can see how many tries it took you to get your BeReal photo. They can also see your location if you allow it.
- You can only delete your BeReal and post a new one once.
- In 2023, a new feature called "BonusBeReal" was added. If you post your first BeReal on time, you can post up to two extra ones that day. This feature is only available in some areas.
- BeReal also has a "Discovery" section. Here, you can choose to share your BeReal with a wider public audience. However, you cannot comment on posts in this section.
BeReal does not have a team that checks every photo before it's posted. But if you see something inappropriate, you can report the photo or the user.
How BeReal is Different
BeReal is often compared to other popular apps like Snapchat, Instagram, and TikTok.
- It's like Wordle because it encourages you to engage once a day.
- It's similar to Snapchat with its focus on quick, temporary posts.
BeReal was designed to be different from apps like Instagram. It tries to reduce "social media fatigue," which is feeling tired or disconnected from always seeing perfect, edited photos online.
- BeReal does not allow any photo filters or editing tools.
- It does not have ads or show how many followers you have.
- The company says BeReal "won't make you famous." This is different from many other social media apps.
- Experts call BeReal an "anti-Instagram" because it focuses on raw, unedited moments.
Instead of "liking" posts, BeReal uses "RealMojis." This means you take a quick photo of your reaction to someone's post.
Because BeReal became so popular, other apps started adding similar features:
- In July 2022, Instagram launched a "Dual Camera" feature, just like BeReal's.
- In August 2022, Instagram started testing "IG Candid Challenges," which also prompt users to post once a day within two minutes.
- In September 2022, TikTok launched "TikTok Now," which works the same way.
In December 2022, BeReal created a video compilation of users' BeReal posts from the year. This was similar to Spotify's "Wrapped" feature.
BeReal does not make money from advertising, unlike many other social media apps. This makes people wonder how the app will continue to be funded.
Who Uses BeReal
BeReal is mostly used by Generation Z (people born between the late 1990s and early 2010s). This age group often wants to avoid the pressure of showing a perfect life online. BeReal helps with this by focusing on real moments.
Many users are university students. Most BeReal users are in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Germany. In 2022, most users were female. About 43% of users were between 16 and 25 years old.
BeReal for Businesses
Because BeReal focuses on small groups of friends, it's not usually used by companies for big advertising campaigns like Instagram or TikTok. However, some businesses might find it useful to connect with younger customers.
There are also privacy concerns for employees. They might accidentally share private company information or harm their employer's reputation with their posts.
BeReal has stated that working with brands is not their main goal. Their purpose is to connect users, not to make money from ads.
