In recent months, for various reasons, there has been talk of TikTok as the revelation app. Firstly, because, on a numerical level, in 2021 the application of Chinese origin beat the competition. And it did so both in our country and globally.
Then there were a number of controversial news about the app. Immediately hailed as a tool that would have made possible a new narration of events (specifically, the Russian-Ukrainian conflict), the application then showed an ambiguous attitude towards Moscow. As if that weren’t enough, an investigation by the Wall Street Journal revealed working conditions at the Los Angeles office to say the least.
But TikTok remains on everyone’s lips anyway. It is there that the curious linguistic fashion of cursive speaking was born, and it is there that our Khaby Lame has recently become the most followed influencer in the world.
In short, TikTok is the most popular social platform on the planet. Are we really sure?
Well: not anymore. Since, at least in the United States, it seems that the primacy is now for BeReal, an app of French origin.
BeReal scalza TikTok
Well yes: in terms of downloads, the French app BeReal in the US has surpassed TikTok.
This is what we can read in the newsletter of the US journalist Casey Newton on Wednesday 20 July.
Newton reports that the BeReal app jumped to # 1 in the US iOS App Store on Monday, July 18. The journalist then gives us some more data: according to the market research firm Sensor Tower, the French application has been installed 20 million times. A spokesperson for the Apptopia company reportedly revealed to Newton confidentially that BeReal’s total downloads are already 29.5 million. In addition, about 333,000 people, according to Apptopia, downloaded BeReal on Sunday 17 July alone.
Even taking a look at the Italian App Store one is impressed by BeReal’s recent performances. In our country, the app is now in sixth position, behind much more well-known and “ancient” competitors, such as Facebook and WhatsApp.
BeReal, l’app diversa
The French company said BeReal is “a sincere and fun place where people can share their lives with friends.
We want to make people feel good about themselves and their lives. We want an alternative to social networks that create addiction, fueling social confrontation and representing life with the aim of accumulating influence “.
Not only that: in an ad hoc section with various warnings, we read that “BeReal can be addictive”, “BeReal will frustrate you” and “BeReal will not make you famous”.
Why does society present itself this way? What is BeReal, and why is the app having such great success?
What is BeReal
The BeReal app was born in France in 2020 and gained great popularity the following year in the United States.
It is becoming the favorite application of Generation Z. As the company’s motto goes, “BeReal is life, real life, and real life has no filters”.
But how does BeReal work? So: every day, at a random time, you are notified. From that moment – whatever time it is, wherever you are – you have two minutes to take a picture. BeReal activates both the front and rear cameras of the phone, and the two images are taken simultaneously. But be warned: you don’t have the option to retouch the photos.
BeReal, then, always requires active participation. You cannot see the images of others before having published your own. Furthermore, there are no reaction buttons (the heart, the raised thumb, etc.). To show your emotional reaction to someone else’s photo there is the RealMoji function, which requires you to take a selfie.
Finally, users also have the ability to take photos beyond the preset two minutes, but the app reports this. And we pass for users who “cheat”, who do not play the game of spontaneity.
The reasons for success
BeReal’s ever-growing success lies precisely there, in posing (cunningly) as a spontaneous, non-aggressive or obsessive social network. No ads and no visible followers.
BeReal is proposed as an app of sincerity. And it touches on a very sensitive topic: it is as if among many young people, today, there was a reaction to the excessive sophistication and pervasiveness of social media, as we told you in another article talking about the new fashion of 0.5 selfies.
Of course, one wonders if this presentation of the French app as a bulwark of discretion is not an advertising strategy. Also because a notification that, at any time of day or night, gives one hundred and twenty seconds to take an image, does not seem to go exactly in the direction of the lack of intrusiveness.
But whatever the case may be, there is one certainty, and it is that the numbers are widely rewarding BeReal.