What the heck is BeReal? A step by step guide to the app Gen Z are obsessed with.

As the resident Gen Z reporter, I've been tasked with something rather important: Explaining every weird and wonderful trend that pops up on social media to my (respectfully) older colleagues. And today, I've got a rather juicy one for you. 

The world of social media apps is ever evolving. It's confusing, repetitive and if I'm being honest, pretty exhausting too.

You've got the photo-sharing social media apps, and then the chatting apps – which are never to be confused with the dating apps - and then apps to share short clips. Of course, there's also an app to share longer clips as well, plus apps for telling secrets, and apps for getting advice. There is also an app to tell people stories and be told stories to. Want to know if you're an asshole or not? Well, believe it or not, there's even an app for that as well. 

Whatever you could need is available at the touch of a finger. Just one app away. 

Watch: How to improve your daughter's body image. Post continues after video. 

And, just to make this space a little noisier, there's a new app that is gaining an immense amount of popularity amongst my generation.

Enter: BeReal - the app you kind of don't at all need, or want. 

It's everywhere at the moment, and you're a lucky person if you haven't been weaselled into being part of it by now. You might be asking yourself, 'what in god's name is this BeReal and why should I care about it?' 

Well, I'm here to tell you exactly what you need to know, so buckle up. 

What exactly is BeReal? 

In short, it's an instant photo-sharing app. 

If you're looking for a longer answer: BeReal is a French social media app released in 2020. Developed by Alexis Barreyat, it became a mainstream app by 2022. It may have taken a while to take off, but it's fast become one of the most viral apps this year. 

It involves sharing one photo of yourself at a random time in the day, so you can show what you're currently doing. 

BeReal's entire purpose is to give an authentic look into the user's life – without any catch. 

Gotta look natural! Image: Supplied.

How does BeReal work? 

It's a fairly simple process, I promise. 

Users will get a notification once a day (you can't possibly anticipate when it will happen either) saying 'Time to BeReal'. This gives users a two-minute window for them to post a selfie alongside a picture of what they are currently up to. 

Both pictures are taken at the same time. A front and back camera capture of exactly what you're up to.

You have exactly two minutes to get the perfect shot, meaning you can retake your photo – but everyone will know how many times you've done so and once your time is up, that's it. 

⚠️ time to BeReal ⚠️ (@ChrisBarnes) pic.twitter.com/jJUWMcUykp

— caroline baniewicz (@carolinebano) July 19, 2022

Before you send your photo, you get to choose whether it goes to just your friends or BeReal's 'Discovery' which means everyone on the app could potentially see it. 

The app is available on all smartphone devices and has a pretty self-explanatory interface. 

There's not much else to BeReal. It's not like Instagram where you spend hours trawling through all of your friends' posts and stories. 

It's not relative to Facebook either, since that is a multi-faceted social media platform. If anything, BeReal is most like Snapchat as you can send selfies with a viewing time limit on both apps. But even then, there are way too many differences between the two apps to say they are super similar. 

It’s time to BeReal ! pic.twitter.com/4Xn8aUTMQc

— chlobuchar (@me_im_chloe) August 11, 2022

The major difference between all of these social media apps and BeReal is that Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Pinterest (heck, even Twitter) are incredibly curated. On those apps, we create a world to our liking, not to our reality. 

BeReal doesn't even give you the opportunity to do so. Currently, there aren't even filters available to make yourself look "better". 

It's a thing of its own and not made to sink long periods of time into – which adds even more to the novelty of BeReal.

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Why Is BeReal so popular right now? 

BeReal may come across as some silly little Gen Z-er app. And if you've got that perception of it, then that's fine. 

It is silly, and it might not become a major conglomerate like good ol' Facebook, but it allows us to connect with our friends without the hassle of finding the perfect filter or picking the proper selfie. 

I'll finish with BeReal's very own words because I couldn't have said it better myself:

"No filters. No likes. No followers. No bulls**t. No ads. Just your friends, for real."

Amen.

 Feature Image: Supplied / Getty.