A cat, a toaster, a plunger, a kiwi fruit, Taylor Swift, an egg — these are just some of the things that are tickling the funny bones of US teenagers in a new Instagram craze in which people repost exactly the same picture every day on the photosharing service.

According to a recent article in The Atlantic, the same-picture craze appeals to teens’ sense of the absurd and those who run these accounts are fanatical in their dedication to posting their pics every day, without fail.

You might have seen comments from some of these accounts on social media – that’s all part of the strategy of same-pic posters, who post on the accounts of celebrities, such as of Swift and Beyoncé, to generate followings for their bizarre obsessions.

It’s also seen as a harmless way of attracting interest to same-pic accounts. There’s something to be said for the fact that most of these teens aren’t resorting to negative ways, such as bitchiness or sarcasm, to get noticed.

Same-pic users often change the captions to convey their feelings or publicise events but not the picture. For example, the 300th picture of a kiwi fruit could appear with a caption saying: “Your girl is turning 16 today!”

The@samepictureofatoaster account started in April this year and already has 51.5k followers, who are known as the #ToastArmy. The teen behind it says he was inspired by a same-pic Shrek account and, to make things interesting, he challenged a few of his friends to create their own same-pic accounts and "race" to gain followers. 

It might all seem a little perplexing to most of us but, according to the teens themselves, there’s a lot of fun to be had from watching the sheer dedication it takes to commit to running one of the accounts.  

As one same-piccer told The Atlantic, “It takes the pressure off of having to post a pic of your face or something. We don’t have to edit any pics; the followers know what they’re getting. We can just post a quirky caption about our life at the moment and they relate.”