By now most of us have learned that there’s no real way to guess what’s going to go viral next. The Internet just loves picking the most random things and giving them an unbelievable amount of attention. So when something completely random becomes a viral thread out of nowhere, you know that there’s only one thing we can do – just go with the flow. We already have the yodeling kid, the Instagram egg, the flossing kid, and all kinds of random sensations, why not have more? The latest Internet trend is one of those things, but it does have a very wholesome feel to it.

Recently one Reddit user shared a picture of his mother holding her painting

Image credits: Gaddafo

The adorable picture quickly received a lot of attention, mainly because the mother thought that nobody would enjoy her colorful painting, so people wanted to show their support.

Soon after, the first person decided to paint the entire picture and post it online

Image credits: k__z14

It was actually Swedish artist Kristoffer Zetterstrand, who is well known for his paintings at Minecraft. He also created a video showing how he painted the stranger’s mother. “I was just browsing Reddit on my way to work and saw that there were several posts with people’s moms showing their painting ideas. I thought it was cute, and had the idea that I would paint one of those funny photos. I often do a small “warmup” painting when I get to the studio – and the motif usually isn’t that important. I pick some photo off the internet or the paper. So this day I decided to do that photo, just for fun. It took a couple of hours. Then I thought it might be entertaining to post a picture of me holding it – at the same place on Reddit I got it from. It seems people liked it.” Kristoffer told Bored Panda. “The response has been overwhelming. I have received hundreds of messages and e-mails. I have been contacted by media from all over the world and apparently the art project I did have been seen tens of millions of times by now. Most people seem to think that it was a great thing to do, and many have contacted me and told me that it made them genuinely happy. I have also gotten a lot of messages from people who want tips on painting techniques, and want to know how to become a professional painter. It’s touching, really. I never intended this, but it’s really fun.”

It didn’t take long for it to become an ongoing viral game

Image credits: lillyofthenight

Strangers started painting each other and it seems they’re not planning to stop

Image credits: seamuswray

“I painted the guy who painted the girl who painted the guy who painted the mom who painted a bird”

Image credits: trixtopherduke

“When it sinks in that I stayed up most of the night to paint a meme for internet points…”

Image credits: fijistudios

Somebody even made a family tree for people to better understand who is painting who

The tree has its own personal website which you can visit to learn more about this cool art meme.

Later, people started sharing branches of the same meme

Image credits: DidiBug

“Bit wonky, but I painted the woman who painted the guy who painted the lady who painted the swan.”

Image credits: Shitty_Watercolour

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Image credits: etceteratrademark

Image credits: Sketch_Study

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Image credits: Caleebies

Image credits: Sketch_Study

Image credits: tthrowawaydfs

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