BeReal is a social media platform meant to bring a less artificial option to modern-day social media culture. The BeReal “goes off” giving you two minutes to take a picture from both cameras of whatever you are doing at that moment. If you’re late, it will tell your friends at the top of your post.

     Though it was released in 2020, its popularity skyrocketed in early summer 2022. The app went from 900,000 users in July 2021 to 21.6 million in July 2022. Now, it’s not uncommon to hear “The BeReal went off!” anytime you’re in public.

     “I think I downloaded it last year in early May,” senior Daria Alinejad said.

     The timer for posting seems a little stressful but it’s important to keep the authenticity to the app. The app gives you a notification every time one of your friends posts. However, you can’t see any of them unless you have already posted for the day.

     “I love using it to see what my friends are up to so I can [tell] if they’re hanging out without me,” junior Mary Dashiell said.

     That’s not all that comes with this “new” app. When scrolling through your friends’ posts, you can react to them with a picture of you in that moment or you can pick one from previous reactions. Not only can you do this on your friends’ posts but you can also react to random people who posted their BeReal publicly. 

     “I get to post reactions to random people on the discovery page and kind of freak them out a little,” Alinejad said.

     The app allows you to look back at all of the BeReals you have ever posted. When looking at your memories, you can click between your front and back camera photos. This is one of the main reasons why people love the app. 

     “I get to [have] memories and still look at them after,” Alinejad said. “It’s really nice to reminisce.”