TikTok is saying bye-bye to its BeReal substitute, TikTok Now. According to Twitter screenshots, an in-app notification sent to some users reads, "We're updating the TikTok experience and are discontinuing TikTok Now" (when I checked my TikTok account this morning, I had yet to be notified).
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The move should come as no surprise to anyone who has followed the swift rise and anti-climactic fall of BeReal. In April, The New York Times reported that BeReal had about six million daily active users, a 61 percent drop from its peak of about 15 million in October 2022.
The app was a Gen Z favorite in 2022, marketed as an authentic alternative to the polished posts of Instagram. It prompted all users daily to take single photo that captured an image from both their front and rear-facing phone cameras. Users never knew when the app's two-minute photo window would open, and that element of surprise, combined with the chorus of chimes from BeReal notifications in public, made it a cultural phenomenon.
The TikTok Now feature launched in September 2022 in response to the success of BeReal. But even though TikTok has 150 million daily active users, it doesn't seem like many of them used TikTok Now. A quick Google search for "TikTok Now" brings up a "people also ask" widget in which the top three questions are: "What is the TikTok Now thing?," "What is the difference between TikTok Now and BeReal?," and "How do I get rid of TikTok Now?"