The Truth Behind Instagram's Mysterious 'Plant A Tree For Every Pet Picture' Trend

If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. 

Millions of people appear to have been duped by a viral Instagram trend that promised to plant a tree for every pet picture posted to the platform. 

We all want to do our bit for the environment and what better, cuter way to help than by posting photos of our furry friends. Right? 

Wrong. 

If you fell for it, you’re far from alone. More than 3 million people seem to have done the same. 

People added their pics to Instagram Stories using the new “add yours” sticker feature released a few days ago by the platform to encourage chain reactions and viral moments. Well, Instagram, it certainly worked.

It wasn’t long before people clocked something wasn’t right and began asking questions. 

Who will be planting the trees? Where will they be planted? Which account started all of this? These are the many unanswered questions thrown into the metaverse.

Like usual Instagram Stories, the “add yours” sticker expires after 24 hours so there’s now an empty hole in our feeds (and souls) that was momentarily flooded with yawning cats, hamsters on the go, and puppies in puddles.

An account named Plant A Tree Co with a million followers claim they are behind the viral trend.

They say they deleted their original post after “10 minutes” because they could see the scale of it going viral and knew they might not be able to have the resources to plant the trees.

They say an Instagram “bug” removed their credit from the post and they’d like to be able to raise funds to plant the trees promised to everyone on the platform with the help of Instagram too.

HuffPost UK have reached out to Instagram to see if they have any further clues to this mystery than we do.