BeReal. All the cool kids are doing it. (Case and point: I’m actively ignoring the “⚠️Time to BeReal. ⚠️” notification to write this story.) If you don’t know what it is, it’s a social media app that asks its users to — you’ll never guess — be real.
Once a day, at a random time, BeReal sends out its now-infamous “Time to BeReal” notification sandwiched by caution emojis, asking unsuspecting users to, in a 2-minute window, post their BeReal for the day (if the app doesn’t crash, that is). These posts are intended to be quick, unplanned and unpolished snapshots of your life in the form of two photos — one with your selfie and one with your rear-facing cam — taken simultaneously. Only after posting your BeReal can you interact with other users’ posts, and the options are endless! And by endless, I mean there are two: you can comment on them or react with a Realmoji, which is a little picture of yourself reacting to what is undoubtedly a riveting look into your friends’ lives and definitely not a photo of them in front of their TV or computer for the fifth day in a row.
\u201cthis is me on BeReal\u201d— intrusive thot (@intrusive thot) 1657654399
Unfortunately, this means that, unless you are the world’s most interesting person or you purposefully ignore the app’s stated purpose of showing your friends “who you really are, for once,” your BeReals probably look more or less the same every day. So, naturally, since the 2-year-old app recently picked up a lot of steam — it’s currently the top free app on the iOS App Store "Social Networking" chart — Twitter decided to spice things up this week with some... hypothetical BeReals. Here are some of our faves:
\u201cit\u2019s time to \u26a0\ufe0fBeReal\u26a0\ufe0f\u201d— Seddera Side (@Seddera Side) 1658298521
\u201cit\u2019s time to \u26a0\ufe0fBeReal\u26a0\ufe0f\u201d— it's me sally darr (@it's me sally darr) 1658108641
\u201cDrakes BeReal\u201d— Harvmiesta (@Harvmiesta) 1657997795
\u201cit\u2019s time to \u26a0\ufe0fBeReal\u26a0\ufe0f\u201d— it's me sally darr (@it's me sally darr) 1658284909
\u201cit\u2019s time to \u26a0\ufe0fBeReal\u26a0\ufe0f\u201d— it's me sally darr (@it's me sally darr) 1658184797
\u201cit\u2019s time to \u26a0\ufe0fBeReal\u26a0\ufe0f\u201d— it's me sally darr (@it's me sally darr) 1658107404