What Is BeReal?

BeReal App: The Photo-sharing App Taking the World by Storm.

No filters, no likes, no followers, no bullshit, no ads—just your friends for real.

Over the last ten years, Facebook, Snapchat, and Instagram have dominated the social space when it comes to sharing photos. Ten years later, photo sharing is all about perfection: editing your snaps until there are no defects and making sure the lighting is on point. But now there’s a new app that encourages its users to be real.

Be Real is the current photo-sharing app on the rise. It encourages users to share what they’re doing at a random point in the day with their friends, live and unedited. Some describe it as a combination of Instagram stories and Snapchat. The app’s mission is to discover who your friends really are in their daily lives.

But how has it risen to a 600 million-dollar valuation? Here’s how it happened: First of all, what is BeReal, and how does BeReal work? Well, BeReal users receive a notification at a random point in the day where they have two minutes to take a photo of what they’re currently doing. The app uses both the front and back cameras, showing what you’re doing as well as your mug shot to go with it. The idea is to capture the realities of everyday life rather than create the perfect IG snap, which you then send to your friends. You can retake the photo if you want, but your friends will be able to see how many times you tried. Speaking of friends, they can react to your photos, and you can make a memory file of all the BeReals you uploaded.

Similar to 1 second everyday, BeReal gives a snapshot into people’s lives as they are showing the reality of the everyday. But unlike 1 second everyday, with BeReal, you’re interacting with your friends at the same time, so it feels more inclusive and less like a burden.

The background of Be Real is that it was founded in 2020 by a Frenchman, Alexis Barreyat. Barreyat came out of nowhere, spending 2013–2016 at the 42 Coding School founded by Xavier Niel, the French billionaire. Barrier then worked as a video producer at GoPro and as a freelance iOS developer. He began creating BeReal in January 2020, but struggled to impress investors. That was until Xavier Niel’s son started using the app, which led to seed investments from Neil’s investment companies. Since then, the app has had over 20 million installs globally, downloaded almost 7 million times in April 2022 alone, truly tapping into the social power of Gen Z.

BeReal aims to humanize social media, showing people a more realistic version of their friends’ lives.
Their tagline is “It’s now possible on Be Real.” No filters, no likes, no followers, no bullshit, no ads—just your friends for real. Their goal is to move away from the perfect photo that gives people foam up and affects mental health. With BeReal, you can see that most people live similarly mundane lives, spending most of their time working, studying, and chilling, just like everyone else. As they say in the app, “being real is life.” Real life. And this life is without filters. Snapchat and Instagram had better watch out. And that’s how it happened.

Are you impressed with BeReal’s concept? Would you download and use this App?