"I only have a close group of friends on it," says Emily Pearce, 24, who says the app tends to feature shots of "most of us sat in front of our laptops day-to-day, but it can have entertainment, like my friend on a first date."
BeReal was founded in France by former GoPro employee Alexis Barreyat.
First launched in 2020, it is only this year that BeReal has exploded in popularity. It is the second most downloaded app this month in the US, only behind TikTok, making it one of the fastest growing social media companies of 2022. In some markets, close to 80 per cent of its users are from Gen Z, or under 25, according to analysts Data.AI.
The app has already had 32 million downloads, according to Randy Nelson, an analyst at SensorTower.
Venture capital investors have sniffed an opportunity. BeReal raised $30 million (£25m) in a Series A round last year, led by Andreessen Horowitz, an elite Silicon Valley investment firm. Accel Partners, New Wave, and Yuri Milner's DST Global joined the deal.
The company is on the hunt for a further $85m which will value the company at $600m, likely to be led by Milner's fund, Business Insider reported.
The billionaire, a Russian-Israeli investor, has lived in Silicon Valley for years, and has become known for his early bets on Facebook and Twitter.
BeReal's founders have kept a low profile, and the company declined an interview request. A spokesman said the app was launched "in response to a feeling that current social apps are doing everything else but connecting us with our friends and family".
The spokesman added: "Alexis Barreyat founded BeReal to stay in touch with his friends. It is a place where real life is captured, free from the need to create, cultivate and amass influence.
"By not focusing on followers, likes and filters, BeReal connects users with spontaneity and authenticity."
While its viral popularity has prompted comparisons to Instagram, BeReal could equally find itself joining the graveyard of gimmicky social media upstarts that have fizzled out of mainstream use.
Houseparty, a social video chat app that boomed during the early months of the coronavirus pandemic, shut down last year after its popularity faded. YikYak, a pseudonymous chat app, exploded onto university campuses in 2013, and was at one point valued at $400m. It was later shuttered - although it relaunched last year. Periscope, a video streaming app acquired by Twitter, was closed down in 2021. Even the infinite resources of Alphabet could not make Google Plus, its attempt to rival Facebook, a success.
BeReal also faces competition from Instagram, which has already started testing IG Candid. This feature encourages users to take a timed photo once a day. Matt Navarra, a social media consultant, said this could be a sign Instagram views BeReal as a "threat". Meta says IG Candid is "an internal prototype", and may never be widely launched.
The challenge from BeReal comes as Instagram faces backlash from its own users, who are frustrated by changes to the social network.
Users have complained that Instagram has been pushing videos into their feeds on the app, rather than photographs. It has also been showing them more content from strangers, rather than their friends.
A redesign of the app was partially walked back after a backlash from celebrity users, including Kylie Jenner and her 360m followers. Instagram has insisted it plans to keep showing more video, arguing its data shows this is what users are engaging with.
The changes are viewed as an effort by the Meta-owned app to head off its biggest rival, Chinese video-sharing app TikTok. But in doing so, it risks putting off current Instagram users and funnelling them towards BeReal.
"BeReal is surfing on the anti-Instagram wave," Navarra adds, "and leaning into Gen Z's desire for more authentic social media experiences."
The data collected and broadcast by BeReal has sparked concerns from some parents. Jo Thornbury, from Malmesbury, Wiltshire, whose teenage son uses BeReal, is mostly supportive of the app, but adds, "The only downside is the geolocation shows every time you choose to publish".
Users are prompted to share their location, although they can choose not to.
BeReal also collects location data and contacts data when users sign up, according to cyber security experts at VPNOverview.
Tech news site The Information also notes a trend of people posting at their desks, risking sending private company or personal information which should be kept secret out to a large group of friends.
There have been questions over how much of BeReal's hype is being driven organically and how much is expensive marketing. Brown University's student newspaper reported student ambassadors were getting paid $30 for every friend they could get to download the app.
The company has a US "college team" hunting for "ambassadors to host parties, manage a marketing budget and identify key moments on campus", which is running until November.
So far, it is not clear how the app will make money. It does not sell adverts or have any paid functions yet. Still, it does highlight the demand for alternative apps to the current clutch of big tech social media offerings.
"There's clearly an appetite for smaller and more intimate platforms," says Nayana Prakash, a researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. The problem, she points out, is that older, millennial users joining the app could quickly erase BeReal's popularity. "Facebook rapidly became uncool once older people, namely parents, started joining it," she says.
TikTok, which is now used by 1bn people, has succeeded in appealing to under 24s, where Meta-owned Facebook and Instagram are struggling.
"The main test for BeReal is whether it can stay cool and relevant for young people," says Prakash.
