The Brief: Instagram accounts dedicated to sharing images of animals, objects, memes, and other things associated with different names give people their own personalized images with their names on them.
DEEP DIVE
There are dozens of Instagram accounts that provide images of animals, memes, celebrity photos, and other objects with different names assigned to each one. “What animal/thing you are” Instagrams serve a similar purpose to personalized souvenirs and the your name + the hedgehog search, giving people an opportunity to feel special via a piece of content that matches their name.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCmGYNog5Mw/
While the premise of individualized content paired with people’s names has existed for a long time, “what animal you are” accounts started surging in popularity and numbers in July 2020. These accounts have names like @whatdogyouare, @what_duck_you_are, and @what_frog_you_are. While many accounts have only a few hundred followers, others have thousands, and up to over 100,000 followers. They rely on follower DMs for name ideas and use images sourced across the web to provide each name with a unique photo of a dog, frog, deer, etc. The names are often written in bold colorful fonts reminiscent of early 2000’s WordArt.
While the premise of these accounts is relatively straightforward, they draw in likes and followers by giving people snippets of personalized content, allowing them to tag friends who have that name, and providing them with a steady flow of cute and quirky animal photos.
Some “what ____you are” accounts are dedicated to inanimate objects rather than animals, like @what_image_are_you which posts cursed images or @whatpotatoareyou, which features–you guessed it–potatoes.
https://www.instagram.com/p/CCmGYNog5Mw/