Last year, an app called BeReal came out, and it made some waves in the mobile app market. Not too long after, TikTok developed its own take on that app called TikTok Now. Well, according to The Verge (via Engadget), the company is officially killing off TikTok Now.
BeReal was an app that had a vendetta against Instagram. Seen as the antithesis of Instagram, BeReal challenged you to take a picture of yourself at a moment’s notice and with no preparation. This mentality contrasted the norm where people would gussy themselves up, pick the right lighting, strike a pose, and choose a filter before even hitting the shutter button.
BeReal challenges you to, well, be REAL. A contrarian idea, BeReal was able to gain some serious traction on the competitive social media landscape. In fact, it was the iPhone app of the year in 2022. That says A LOT because it was up against the likes of TikTok and other popular apps.
TikTok is killing off TikTok Now
It didn’t take long before BeReal had some real emulators. TikTok developed its own clone service called TikTok Now. As the name suggests, you’re challenged to take a photo or video with both your front and back camera. You’ll get notifications to do so, and these notifications could come at random points in the day.
While it seems that everything that TikTok does is a money-making machine, this idea is on its way out. Screenshots from several users show an update in the app that will remove the TikTok Now feature.
At this point, we don’t know when this feature will be dropped. One thing we know is a possible reason for this discontinuation. It’s not just that TikTok Now was losing traction, but BeReal was also losing traction.
The app has been on the decline over the past several months. While it was crowned app of the year, people most likely just got tired of it. It’s an interesting idea and very refreshing. However, people probably just tried it out, enjoyed it for a bit, and then went back to their usual social media posts.
Since people are getting tired of this type of social media sharing, TikTok Now also saw a massive decline. Now, it’s on the chopping block only nine months after it launched.