The mystery behind the ‘we’ll plant a tree for every pet pic’ Instagram trend

Instagram Stories have been inundated with photos of users’ furry friends after a new wholesome trend hit the app. While we’re not complaining, there are so many unanswered questions surrounding the viral sticker.

The new IG addition promises to “plant 1 tree for every pet picture”, but the mystery remains as to who will be garnering over 4.5 million seeds (and counting) to plant these trees – and where will they be planted?

Well now, an Instagram account has stepped forward with claims that they’re responsible for the origin of the sticker. Plant A Tree Co. (@plantatreeco) issued a statement on their Instagram Story, reading: “We are in awe as to how fast this post has grown. We started this tree planting campaign, but Instagram is not showing our credit and everyone is wondering who’s behind it.”

The people behind the account have asked followers to tag @instagram in hopes that will fix the issue.

In a feed post, they added: “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. It is raising money towards @treesforthefuture which is an organization that we love, who is dedicated to planting trees.”

Instagram have also commented: “The ‘we’ll plant one tree for every pet picture’ trend shows the power of the Instagram community to raise awareness on important topics.”

“Like all other ‘Add Yours’ sticker threads, it was started by an independent Instagram account – not Instagram.”

In the coming days, the mystery surrounding who was responsible sent users into overdrive. They subsequently turned to Twitter in an attempt to get to the bottom of the unsolved digital mystery – but no one seemed to have the answer. “I want to know who is the ‘We’ that is going to post 1 tree for every pet pic on IG,” one said, while another compared it to “those chain emails that I sent to my friends in 2008.”

One user highlighted, “There is no information available on who is behind it, so this is just as good as those fake giveaway pages on Facebook”.

“I doubt they are planting trees for everyone posting a pic of their pet, but I appreciate them nonetheless,” another tweeted.

While a third tweeted, “Do we really think Instagram is planting a tree for every pet? Bc I don’t.”

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Seeing as Twitter were just as clueless as just about everyone, people turned to YouTube for answers.

While videos have since been uploaded to the platform, they do appear to be somewhat suspicious, simply telling users how to participate using robot voiceovers.

The closest social media users got was an ambiguous comment that read, “it was started by one organisation but they deleted later” – though no organisation has yet been identified.

One user asked, “who is planting the trees?” to which one person responded, “the person who started the chain.”

Indy100 has reached out to Plant A Tree Co. for further comment.