Get the picture: the Instagram accounts that post the same photo every day

A host of online accounts are dedicated to posting an identical image every day - from pictures of Bake Off stars to Steve Buscemi. But why?

If scrolling through your Instagram feed first thing has become an unavoidable morning ritual, then a posting trend that has recently garnered attention might just make sense to you. Teenagers - and they are by all accounts predominantly teenagers - have for the past couple of years taken to running daily "same picture" accounts, which do exactly as the title suggests. They post one pic and one pic only, the same one, every single day. That picture can be anything from a stock photo of a gherkin to a cut-out of Danny DeVito's face. There are same accounts featuring Steve Harvey, a shirtless Gibby (from the sitcom iCarly), a Supreme brick, a person falling, a red Croc, a pink Croc, Pink Guy, the Fortnite pump, a dog called Kevinand a lone chicken nugget. And while certain left-field takes on the format see that one pic slightly altered with each new post - see @samepicofgodfieri's daily Warholesque reworking of a smiling Guy Fieri shot - most are straight up repeats: visual mantras for the oversaturated.

Elena, who declines to give her last name but is based in Germany, started @samepictureofstevebuscemi in March 2016 for no reason other than, as she puts it, to "promote the man's beauty". Why does this mode of tribute appeal more than any other? "I'm a pretty lazy person," she says. "It would be more interesting to look at different pictures of him every day, but looking at the same pic every day is quite funny." And that equivocation between mesmeric boredom and elusive amusement seems key to the whole phenomenon.