As Twitter finds its footing under new CEO Elon Musk, TikTok and BeReal remain the two preferred social media apps for Gen Z.
Many people know how TikTok works, but BeReal is a newer app. Launched in 2020, the latter has more than 50 million downloads worldwide, according to Fast Company.
So, what exactly is BeReal?
The French app has been pitched as an “authentic, unfiltered alternative to the curated posts on Instagram and TikTok,” according to The Wall Street Journal.
Here’s how it works: Once a day, the app sends you a notification, telling you to post your BeReal for the day — a photo of whatever you’re doing at the time, whether it’s lying in bed or making dinner, as I previously reported for the Deseret News.
You only have two minutes to prepare. When you take the photo, it’s going to capture from the front- and back-facing cameras at the same time.
No filters. No retouching. Retakes are allowed but everyone can see that you retook the image.
How to use BeReal while protecting yourself
There is one main privacy concern with this app. As Buzzfeed writer Katie Notopoulos pointed out, BeReal “shares your actual location, down to the city block you’re on.”
“When you see a friend’s location in the feed, it looks like just a city and state below their name. But if you tap into that text, it pulls up a map feature. And then you can zoom in — really zoom in — on their location,” she writes.
How to turn off your location in BeReal
When the app sends a ping for you to share your photo of the day, follow these steps to turn off your location before you post it, according to Business Insider.
- Create your post but hold off on sending it.
- At the bottom of the photo review, there should be a location icon. Press that.
- This will reveal a pop up menu where you can turn the location off.
- The last step is to post the picture.