What is BeReal and how does the app that wants you to be authentic work?

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By Uriel Blanco, Faith Karimi
(CNN Spanish) — In the digital ecosystem, there are various applications whose main feature is sharing images, and probably the flagship of all of them is Instagram, which in October 2022 turns 12.

And with more than a decade of existence, it's only natural that Instagram has a global presence and dominates the photography social media scene. However, there's a young social network that's growing by leaps and bounds, especially in 2022.
This is the BeReal app, which It was released on December 19, 2019 and whose main objective is to encourage users to be more authentic than on other social networks where you can edit and retouch images at will.
BeReal is a social networking app that encourages users to share a part of their lives in real time.
The app, which has as its slogan “Your friends for real”, is available only on Apple's iOS operating system, and seems to be very popular, with a 4.9 star rating.
As the name suggests, the goal is authenticity. The app invites users once a day to share a photo of what they're doing at that moment, giving their friends and others an unvarnished view of their lives.
It has no filters or editing buttons. So if your hair is a mess right now and your view is of a rainy parking lot, that's what people will see.
The result is a far cry from the polished, overly curated photos popular on other social media platforms.
The BeReal concept is simple. Once you download the app, you receive a notification once a day that "It's BeReal Time." That means you have two minutes to take and post a photo of whatever you're doing, no matter how mundane.
There's no fixed time: notifications arrive at various times of the day, adding to the mystery of the app.
"Push notifications are sent simultaneously around the world at different times of the day," the company explains in a statement. "It's a secret how the time is chosen each day; it's not random."
This means that the potential window into your life can open at any moment. When it does, the app invites you to take a photo of what you're doing at that moment. It takes a double photo: a selfie and one showing what's in front of you. (BeReal doesn't yet support video.)
The result is a social feed filled with unedited photos of your close friends doing everyday, unglamorous things: lounging in pajamas, doing homework, riding the bus, microwaving dinner.
Some of BeReal's features. (Photo: Created with images from the App Store)
With just one post a day, there's no need to mindlessly scroll through a clutter of friends' photos. You can only see your friends' posts if you share a photo, which eliminates stalkers. Some people turn off their location for privacy reasons, as the app works in real time.
When you tap the BeReal notification once a day, the camera opens within the app along with a two-minute countdown timer. You have until the timer expires to take a photo of what's in front of you. At the same time, the front camera takes a selfie.
The app will share both images. You can retake them within the allotted two minutes and share them with your friends when you're ready.
BeReal also allows users to take and post the photo later in the day, but it tells your friends how many hours have passed between the notification and the posting time. In short, it exposes you for your lack of spontaneity.
According to data updated to August 2022 from the specialized site Apptopia, BeReal has been downloaded 43.3 million times since its launch in December 2019.
What's impressive is the growth this year: of the 43.3 million downloads, almost 95% (41 million) occurred in 2022, according to Apptopia. Of the new users, the United States is the largest market, accounting for 40% of the total.
Likewise, Apptopia announced in April that, from 2021 to 2022, the app's monthly active users grew by 3,15%. Months later, the specialized site noted that BeReal was the most downloaded non-gaming app on iOS worldwide during August 2022.