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Trees Unlikely To Be Planted Following Viral Instagram Pet Photo Trend

Trees Unlikely To Be Planted Following Viral Instagram Pet Photo Trend

Millions have taken part in the trend, but it doesn't look like there'll be a forest to show for it

Anonymous

Anonymous

If you've been on Instagram lately, you might have noticed that the place is swarming with pets.

This in itself isn't that unusual, the difference is these photos are being shared with a sticker which reads: "We'll plant 1 tree for every pet picture."

The sticker is an example of Instagram's new 'Add Yours' feature, which turns the sticker into a thread encouraging users to respond with similar content.

Now, people love trees and people love sharing photos of their pets, so predictably the trend quickly went viral.

The sticker has now been used millions of times, which begs the question - where is this massive forest going to be planted and who is going to fork out for it?

Well, it seems like the answer is nowhere and no one.

The trend went viral.
Instagram

Plant A Tree Co claimed to be behind the trend, but said it couldn't afford to plant the trees.

It said: "Thank you for sharing your pets, they're adorable.

"We posted the new 'Add Yours' story as a fun tree planting campaign where we can show off our awesome pets!

"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.

"We want to use this awareness for lasting impact, so we created this fundraiser. Please share this post and the fundraiser on your story, and tag all your friends, celebrities, and @instagram so they can see this and so we can ACTUALLY plant 4 million trees."

It's best to do your research before donating to that fundraiser though.

At the time of writing, the company has provided no explanation of how it will plant four million trees, or evidence of the 6,500+ trees it claims to have planted thus far.

LADbible has contacted Plant A Tree Co for comment.

Meanwhile, Instagram said it is looking into ways to increase transparency going forwards.

A spokesperson said: "The 'plant 1 tree for every pet picture' Add Yours thread was disabled to limit misunderstanding around who authored the original post.

"We're working on ways to make authorship clearer and minimise confusion moving forward."

Featured Image Credit: Alamy

Topics: Viral, Instagram, Pet, Dog, World News, Pets, Dogs