TikTok Now followed the same concept as BeReal, the French social media app built around spontaneous daily photo prompts.
BeReal launched in 2019, but its popularity surged in 2022. Once a day, users received a randomly timed notification and had a short window to capture a photo using both front and rear cameras. The design encouraged unpolished snapshots rather than carefully edited posts.
TikTok introduced TikTok Now in 2022 with a very similar prompt-based format. Users were asked to post a simultaneous front-and-back-camera image or short video within a daily time limit. The feature was TikTok’s response to BeReal’s rapid cultural impact, although TikTok Now was later discontinued in several markets.
A common mix-up is confusing BeReal with Yubo, another French social platform. Yubo is primarily organized around social discovery and live video, while BeReal’s defining idea is its once-daily, spontaneous dual-camera post.