App Recommendation: Be Real

[sorcyress]

So, when I visited Tuesday over February break, she introduced me to a social media app called BeReal.

The premise is that a notification will happen once per day, and you will be prompted to take a double photo (simultaneous front and back camera) to post for your friends. The notification will be at the same time for everyone using the app, but at a random different time each day.

(As I've discovered, you don't actually have to post at the notified time --it'll just tell everyone how many minutes late your BeReal was. The way I play it is to always post as soon as I see the notification, regardless of how long it's been since it was actually sent.)

Pictures are limited to just your friends by default, but you can choose to put them into the "discovery" mode, where anyone could see them. You can see your friends' BeReals until the next daily notification, and then they're gone. I can see my own archive of photos (in a very nice calendar form that I can quickly scroll through, and I *love* the app for that alone!) but I can't see anyone else's.

And that's the whole thing! It's a social media feed that's limited to one post per day per person, that you can't even go back into the archive of. I've been pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoy it...and that's with only two friends! If it sounds Of Interest to you, I'd enjoy having more friends there (and also there are more features if you have ten friends apparently? I have no idea what). I'm Sorcyress, because yeah obviously, and that should be plenty searchable.

~Sor
MOOP!

Comments

[canyonwalker]

Huh. That's interesting. While I spend time going to beautiful places and enjoy sharing pictures I take there on my blog, I fret that 98% of the time the prompt would arrive when I'm sitting at home doing nothing special or particularly attractive. Is it kosher to see the prompt and, say, quickly step outside to the balcony or garden to take a picture there?

[jducoeur]

I fret that 98% of the time the prompt would arrive when I'm sitting at home doing nothing special or particularly attractive.

Having been doing it for the past few days: I think the intent is to drive home that real life isn't all beautifully composed -- most folks are taking shots that are fairly mundane. There aren't any rules per se, but I would recommend not going to too much effort to compose a shot. (The notification comes with a two-minute timer, to drive this home.)

Personally, I'm using it as an opportunity to be aware of my surroundings while I'm standing at my work desk, and share that bit of reality with my friends. So for example, today's picture was my just-emptied coffee mug, as a sign of a day that is kicking into gear...