In the age of social media and heavily edited lives, seeing a photo without filters is refreshing. Even your closest friends can become unrecognizable online, making keeping up with their real lives hard. That’s where Buddies comes in. Buddies is a French social media app, the goal of which is to share snippets of your life with your friends without any edits or retakes.
Users are encouraged to take pictures and videos directly in the app throughout the day. The pictures and videos are immediately blurred, preventing the user from seeing them. You can’t edit or remove your media after it’s been created. Then, at 6 PM (or 8 PM, depending on your region) on the dot, all is revealed. You can view your friend’s pictures and videos, as well as your own. This way, you get to see what they have been up to all day without any edits. It’s like Instagram stories, but more realistic and authentic.
Why Should I Download Buddies?
You should download Buddies if you want to stay in touch with your friends in a casual way, but you’re tired of the pressure to create the perfect picture for social media. Buddies allows you to do just that. You can connect with your friends as you would on social media platforms—through casual photos and videos. At the same time, there is no pressure to only share the most beautiful and amazing moments from your life because you literally can’t.
The way the app works is that you can pop in to snap a photo or video whenever you feel like it. The photo or video is immediately blurred, so you don’t get to see it or edit it in any way. Buddies saves your work for you and your friends to see at 6 PM French time. At 6 PM, all the photos and videos are revealed. When you get home after a busy day, you can open the app and see what your friends were up to all day, and they can do the same. There is no pretense; you will only see real random snapshots from your friends’ day.
The app has other features too. One of them is that you can send photos and videos to your friends throughout the day. You select the timeframe they have for opening your message, be it a couple of minutes or an hour. If the message is not opened within that timeframe, it disappears forever. Much like on other social media platforms, you can have private groups and chats, where you get to communicate with friends via text or voice messages.
Finally, you can look back on your photos and videos through the built-in calendar feature. Your memories are organized chronologically, giving you an overview of your weeks, months, and years on Buddies.
Is Buddies Free?
Yes, Buddies is a free app. You can download it and use it without paying anything. However, there are optional in-app purchases for users. For example, you can pay a small fee if you broke a streak with a friend and would like to repair it.
What Operating Systems Are Compatible with Buddies?
Buddies is a mobile app available on Android and iOS devices. You will need iOS 15.0 or later if you’re using an iPhone or iPad. For Android devices, your device should run Android 7.1 or later.
What Are the Alternatives to Buddies?
Because social media apps are made in a way that encourages curation and heavy edits, Buddies is a bit of a unicorn. However, there are other apps you might enjoy if you like Buddies.
BeReal is among the most popular social media apps of this kind. You start by creating an account and adding people you know as friends, as you would on most apps. Then, the app sends you a notification multiple times a day to snap a photo with your front and back camera at the same time. You only have two minutes to take your BeReal photo, but you can have as many tries as you can fit in that timeframe. Add a comment to your photo if you wish and send it on its way. Only after you’ve taken your photo can you see and comment on your friends’ photos. The app encourages people to be real, as the name suggests, and share authentic moments from their days.
Instants by Instagram is a newer app of the same type. As the app was developed by Meta - the company behind Instagram - you can access it as a feature in your Instagram app or as a standalone app. Here, you’re not prompted to take a photo. Instead, you just take one whenever you feel like it, and it goes out immediately. You can add a caption before you take a photo. All the photos are taken directly in the app, so there is no cheating. Your friends have 24 hours to view your instants. If they’re not viewed, then they expire, never to be seen again. This app is particularly attractive to people who already use Instagram and can appreciate a new way to communicate with friends.
Snapchat is the pioneer of this genre. What started as an application for sending pictures that could only be viewed once grew into a full-blown social media application with stories, influencers, and chatting. The core message of Snapchat remains the same—share authentic moments from your life only to be viewed once. Unlike on BeReal and Instants, filters are encouraged here. Snapchat has its own collection of silly filters you can apply when you send your friends snaps. If your work is screenshotted, you will be notified.
