BeReal is planning to release a new feature that seems to counter the main purpose of the app. The company will be creating a feed dedicated to famous people, only available to users in the UK.
Aside from sharing daily photos with your friends, now you'll get to see what top artists, activists, and athletes are up to. This feature will be called RealPeople, where users will have a curated timeline of "The most interesting people in the World."
Everything You Need to Know About BeReal
RealPeople is an 'anti-Instagram' app that isn't about marketing, influencing, or trying to gain likes or comments. Users won't see perfect photoshopped pictures, ads, or product recommendations disguised as posts.
The BeReal app markets itself as "Your friends for real." It gives you different windows of time every day to take photos from your front and rear camera simultaneously.
You typically have a two-minute window to take the photo. This is to ensure that users will share authentic updates from their life.
If you're ever late in posting your photos or you decide to retake your photos, your friends will be notified. However, this approach has caused serious teething issues where students will take out their phones simultaneously during classes.
The purpose of the app is to randomly share what you're doing with friends, whether you're simply lying down or taking a hike. However, with the latest update, BeReal is throwing strangers into the mix.
To access the RealPeople feature, you have to head to the Discovery Tab and select RealPeople. From there, you can react to the posts with a RealMoji.
The timeline also allows users to hide posts to keep RealPeople catered to the user's interests. You can also report posts shared on the RealPeople timeline.
BeReal also states that you can suggest someone or yourself for its RealPeople timeline through their form. However, it's unclear if BeReal has any users lined up for its feed presently.
Purpose of the RealPeople Timeline Feature
The updated feed will look like every other social media platform minus the sponsored posts and filters. However, RealPeople's timeline will feature "an ever-changing collection" of high-profile people from all around the world.
The company states, "RealPeople is a feature we want to encourage celebrities to show that we're more alike than we think." This feature encourages popular artists and athletes to share a part of their life without editing anything.
Aside from the RealPeople feature, the company is also planning to launch Bonus BeReal where users can post two extra snapshots each day. You can choose to post at any time as long as you share your regular BeReal photos on time.
This feature could undercut the spontaneous authenticity that BeReal is trying to reach since it gives users extra time to edit and pose for the photos. However, BeReal states that they make changes to the feature.
