TikTok’s latest feature is an outrageous copy of BeReal

Originality is a dead language, at least in the world of social media apps. TikTok has held its ground as the most popular app for its curated, AI-powered content feed, but it’s recognized that there’s a growing market of young people who are tired of browsing the incoherent buzz of celebrities and algorithm-based feeds. Unfortunately, instead of creating something new, it decided to directly steal another company’s idea to use it in its own app.

The ByteDance-owned company announced Thursday that it has launched a new feature called ” tik tok now in the coming weeks and is now accessible for US users via the app and in other regions via a separate TikTok Now app. Just like everyday photo app BeReal, TikTok Now says it will prompt users to use front and back cameras to capture what they’re doing. Users receive daily prompts for a photo or 10-second video to share with friends and family.

If this new feature rings any bells, it’s because that’s exactly what the app is Be honest already does. BeReal has advertised itself as an app that runs in the opposite direction of curated algorithm-based feeds, instead asking users to send a photo or short video to their friends and family every day. There are no filters or followers, and photos are taken at random times of the day using both the front and rear phone cameras.

BeReal hit the scene in 2020 and currently ranks as the most downloaded social networking app on the list Apple App Store and remains popular in the Google Load game. It’s far from that billion on billions who downloaded TikTok and Instagram together, but a research company Apptopia wrote last month that BeReal has been downloaded 43.3 million times since December 2019 and will see a huge surge in downloads in 2022.

BeReal founder Alexis Barreyat and BeReal himself declined to comment on this story or other apps copying his designs, although the company said they were not conducting interviews at the time.

It seems that the world’s most popular social media app, which became famous for its AI-powered feed, is trying to offer more localized and curated content. TikTok also recently announced that they were Working on Nearby feeds to show you videos closer to home, a feature already used by Snapchat through its Snap card and Instagram With photo card function.

TikTok wrote that TikTok Now users can send their videos to mutual friends, but can also choose to share them with the wider TikTok community, although the default is friends-only. Still, the ability to bring these fast videos to a wide audience is a distinct difference between BeReal. The French app has publicly stated that it seeks to capture “real life…free from the need to create, cultivate, and accumulate influence.”

Of course, Instagram is also apparently trying to copy the popular French app. Leaked photos show that Meta’s own photos app is working on something currently called “IG Candid Challenges,” which asks users to take a candid photo at different times of the day. And if you think that sounds just like BeReal, you are not the only one.

While Instagram is trying sweep up every new and popular idea on the market and already is do their best to copy TikTok through his Distribution of reels and short videosit is fought to interest its users in these new features.

Knowing that BeReal has only become popular this year shows how keen the world’s largest social networks are to maintain their dominance. In fact, we’re getting to a point where the biggest social apps are competing in a rat race for ideas, regardless of which ideas seem to be catching on among younger demographics. If only these companies realized that more people appreciated apps that don’t Harvest your datathen perhaps we wouldn’t have such a bad conscience about her unoriginal features.