TikTok is a social media app that is constantly updating and changing. TikTok Now was launched in September 2022 but was quickly discontinued in June 2023, lasting less than a year.
If you use TikTok often, you may have posted a few Nows before the option suddenly disappeared from your app, but many people never even used it.
What Was TikTok Now?
TikTok Now was a feature where users could post a dual-camera photo or 10-second video at a certain time every day. The dual-camera element takes a photo or video with your front and back camera at the same time, so you can see yourself and whatever is in front of you in the post. It was an in-app feature in the United States and a separate app in other regions including parts of Europe, Africa, and Asia.
TikTok announced it would be discontinuing the feature in late June 2023, according to the Associated Press. The in-app feed is gone, being replaced with just the Friends tab, where you can scroll through a feed of TikToks just from your followers that you also follow.
The TikTok app would send you a push notification to your phone letting you know it is “Time to Now” each day at a specific time. The idea was to post whatever you are doing at that time, but you were allowed to post late.
If this feature sounds familiar to you, that’s because it probably is. TikTok Now was almost exactly the same premise as popular social media app BeReal's main features, which grew immensely popular in 2022. Other social media apps, like Instagram, worked quickly to create their own version of BeReal to capitalize on the popularity.
TikTok’s main difference from BeReal was that you have the option to post a short video, whereas BeReal is just photo-based.
Why Did TikTok Discontinue TikTok Now?
Posting to TikTok Now was simple and easy. So why discontinue it? TikTok didn't exactly say why, but with BeReal's popularity declining, it can be safely assumed that TikTok Now wasn't super popular either. Most people go on TikTok to watch entertaining short videos, not to see what people are up to at a certain moment.
You can still access your past Now posts by going to your profile and tapping the private tab represented by the lock icon, then scrolling to Now memories. No one else can see your past posts.
What TikTok Now Offered
Social media can often seem over-curated and superficial. You may find yourself comparing yourself to others—one of the negative effects of social media.
Features like BeReal and TikTok Now showed a more real and in-the-moment side of our friends on social media. Because people never know when the notification will come out to post, there is no time to prepare with makeup or clothes.
Unfortunately, this also meant that BeReals or TikTok Now posts could often be quite boring. For example, if you work full-time, most of your photos will probably just be you at your desk. This is a big reason why features like this don't have longevity and become monotonous. This is also probably another reason why TikTok is discontinuing the feature.
Say Goodbye to TikTok Now
There are still plenty of other ways to create content on TikTok, so Now is not the biggest loss. You can still post photos in a slideshow format and to TikTok Stories for more casual content. And BeReal still has millions of users to fill your in-the-moment content needs. And who knows, maybe TikTok Now will return someday.