TikTok over the weekend launched its BeReal clone, TikTok Now, as a standalone mobile app across global markets outside the U.S., largely on iOS. The app offers a similar feature set to the TikTok Now experience being introduced into the U.S. TikTok app, announced last week. But as an independent mobile app, it allows users to opt in to receive the push notifications just for these social check-ins — even if they have their TikTok notifications silenced.

Instagram Snapchat adds the Stories feature, Instagram nabs it. TikTok gets too popular, Instagram pivots to short-form video. Now, here’s another one for the list. This week, Instagram quietly added a feature to its TikTok-clone Reels called Dual, which lets you record with both your front and back camera at the same time. Visually, it looks extremely similar to BeReal, the buzzy, two-year-old social app that’s currently No. 1 in the App Store.

BeReal markets itself as an anti-Instagram. At a different time every day, you receive a notification telling you that it’s “time to BeReal” but it seems like Instagram is missing the point of why people even like BeReal. Though the two-camera feature is fun, BeReal is perhaps more like Wordle than it is like Instagram. BeReal is not so much about the photos as it is about the daily ritual of sharing something with your friends. It is not about the algorthim, as IG ONLY cares about it’s artificial Intelligence and not the consumers who use their platform.

BeReal’s success reveals an appetite among social media users for more authentic, intimate forms of expression, not perfected videos or photos.  – Something that content creators need to get with ASAP if they want to stay on the social media totem pole.