What's happening with Instagram’s viral pet photo trend?

It was almost impossible to scroll through your social media feed last night and not come across a friend's smiling pooch or adorable pet selfie on your IG stories.

Animal lovers were in their element, but why? Where did this global trend come from?

Millions of people shared photos of their pets and used the Add Yours sticker, believing that trees may be planted as a result.

The Add Yours sticker was only added as an Instagram Story function on November 1st.

Last night's sticker that read "We'll plant 1 tree for every pet picture' has been used over four million times on Stories since it was created on November 8th.

But who is the "we" behind the trend which has now gone viral and will any trees actually go into the ground?

The source of the trend has not been verified but one account called @plantatreeco, which has one million followers, has taken responsibility.

We know pictures of furry four-legged friends typically perform well on social media, but no one could predict this trend to go viral so quick.

In a recent post on their Instagram grid the company says it created the Add Yours story as a 'fun tree planting campaign.'

"We immediately realized the post would grow too big and that we didn't have the resources to plant that many trees, so we deleted it 10 minutes later. Even though we deleted it, the stories continued to spread out of our control. Our credit for the post was also removed, because of what seems like an @instagram bug."

The ‘Add Yours’ sticker is only available in some countries right now. However, it will soon be rolled out worldwide.

All you have to do is share a photo that relates to the statement, then others can add their own, creating a collaborative album.

With the shocking success of last night's trend, who knows what's going to be next!

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• Instagram
• viral trend
• pet pics
• plant trees