Students start using new app called BeReal
Junior Kayly Richert takes BeReal Photo
October 24, 2022
BeReal is an app that became popular at the beginning of the summer and has 28 million downloads as of September. BeReal was created in 2020 by Alexis Barreyat, a former GoPro employee, and Kevin Perreau. The app is used primarily by teens and college students. The new app shows what people are doing at the moment.
BeReal is blowing up for its plain honesty, which sets it apart from other apps. The app has a daily 2-minute timer that goes off randomly throughout the day. During that 2-minute window, its users take a picture to share with their friends. The app has a handful of features that sets it apart from other apps. BeReal has 4.8 stars in the app store with reviews showing how loved the app has become.
The app has no filters, likes, or follower count, as well as the app, also shows who screenshots your post, the app shows how many times you retook your picture. Those who post out of the two-minute posting window, under their post the app will say how late you were to share what you are doing. When a picture is taken the picture takes from both the front and back camera and shows both sides of your post, which are the many features of the app that make it so different.
The app is loved for its simplicity and casualness. “I like BeReal because it’s like Snapchat and Instagram but it’s more real. You take a picture then and there, no filters or anything, and just show what you’re doing,” senior Alix Bertz said.
The app has millions of daily users and growing. The app has 4.8 stars in the app store with great reviews. The app’s purpose, features and popularity keep interesting people, making them want to download the app.
“I found out about BeReal through my friends because they would take their BeReals with me and eventually made me want to download it a week ago,” junior Ashlyn Wey said.
BeReal is a “casual” social media app which means there is not as much pressure around posting. People feel comfortable enough to take pictures in bed which is not very common for social media apps because there is a lot of pressure around posting.
People can post anything they are doing without the worry of people judging their posts.
Junior Noah Archer described people can post “things you like and you’re not worried about” other people seeing.
BeReal is not addicting like other social media apps such as TikTok, Instagram, Snapchat and YouTube. This is nice because you can’t really spend hours on there. Many people spend a good amount of time out of their day on social media; however, BeReal only has the posts from that day, so spending a lot of time on the app would become repetitive.
Most users take their picture for the day and scroll through their friends posts for a bit and leave a comment or a reaction under their friends posts just for a couple minutes Wey explained.
BeReal is a new social media app that has gotten popular for being casual and just simply fun.
kallie fahs • Nov 14, 2022 at 8:22 pm
I enjoyed reading this story because I liked to hear the different perspectives from a wide variety of students. At first I didn’t love the idea of BeReal when it was becoming popular because I thought people were simply getting it because that’s what everyone else was doing but after hearing why students enjoy the app it has totally changed my perspective. It was cool to hear how students feel like they can truly be themselves while using the app. One of the quotes I really liked was the one from Noah Archer where he talks about how people don’t feel like they have to worry about people judging their posts. I like this quote because I feel like social media platforms like instagram people are always worrying about how they look in the photo and making sure the photo has been edited well. It is encouraging to hear that students have found an app where they can accept themselves at the moment and not worry about other people judging them. I liked how the writer talked about the successes of BeReall and what you can do on the app. I learned some new things about the app. One of them being that one you screenshot someone’s post they can see that you have. I thought that story was constructed very well. It was very interesting and kept my attention throughout the whole story. While reading this I could tell the writer put a lot of thought into the style of how they wrote this story.