A week ago, I opened my Instagram for the 10th time – OK, 20th, we’re still in quarantine – that day to an unexpected message from my friend. Splashed across the image of what appeared to be a frog in a pink tutu standing on its hind legs was my name, written in rainbow bubble letters.
The time it took me to go from deeply confused by this image to consumed by the need to find more frogs was lightning fast: within minutes, I was scrolling frantically through the account it came from, @What_frog_you_are, determined to find frogs emblazoned with all my friend’s names.
Frogs are not the only animals that have served as a canvas for the latest, mindless Instagram pastime: soon, I found accounts featuring pictures of cows and fish bearing a litany of names, offering a conveniently time-consuming activity for anyone bored enough to search for theirs.
It is clearly a welcome respite these days. Over the next few days, my friends and I sent each other equally absurd pictures back and forth, from accounts like @Whatfoodyouare to @Whichguyareyou (Fieri, not Ritchie, though at this rate, that iteration may exist soon). These accounts, which have ballooned in number over the last week, are like the anti-BuzzFeed quizzes: you can’t optimize your way to the most flattering outcome. I keep asking myself, as I wait for my name to appear on a stock photo of a dog: why do I care if my name is next to a border collie or a bulldog? And yet I can’t look away – and I really want it to be a border collie. It seems that, in quarantine, we’ve all regressed to teenagers: finding joy in the simple fact of putting our names on things.
Mallory, the 19-year-old behind @Whatdogyouare, says her inspiration for the account came from seeing a friend run a cat version. (“I’m a dog person,” she offers.)
Since opening the account on 9 July, Mallory has grown to 122,000 followers and counting. On 11 July alone – the day after I received the tutu-clad frog – she gained 54,000 followers.
“Everybody loves to feel special,” said Alexa, the 19-year-old who runs @Whatfoodyouare and says she was inspired by Mallory’s account. “I thought, ‘What’s one thing everyone loves?’ The first thing is dogs, so I chose the second-best: food.” By using photos of everything from donuts to crab legs, Alexa has married the internet’s longstanding obsession with food with its latest fixation with names on things.
For anyone with a name commonly forgotten by souvenir keyrings, these accounts take requests – with stipulations. Some prioritize those who donate to charities, like Kayla, the 20-year-old creator of @What_cow_are_you; a cow lover who lives on a farm, she first looks at requests from people who give to World Animal Protection. Jordan, the 20-year-old behind @What_harry_styles_are_you asks that requesters follow the account, as well as the personal accounts of her and co-creator Lauren.
For Jenna, Victoria and Alex, all in their late 20s, there was only one celebrity they wanted to pay homage to: Guy Fieri. “This account is a public representation of what our texts to each other already look like,” says the trio. That strategy seems to work: Guy Fieri follows them.
Inevitably, brands like the skincare company Starface have hopped on the trend, which all but spells the end of this meme’s lifecycle. (At the time of writing, @What_frog_you_are seems to have been deleted.) For now, we can enjoy this entertaining, albeit strange escape from quarantine – thanks to the fast work of the meme creators.
While the speed at which these accounts publish suggests the work of AI or bots, every person I interviewed claims to create the images themselves. Time-consuming? Probably. But at least they don’t have to worry about coming up with an answer to what did you accomplish in quarantine. Mine will be having found my name on all these accounts – equally impressive, no?
