This is why your Facebook news feed is now filled with photos of giraffes

Suddenly noticed that a lot of your Facebook friends have transformed into a certain long-necked mammal? You’re not alone. The latest odd trend (no, it’s not a hack) to hit the social network involves switching your profile photo to a shot of a giraffe if you can’t answer a riddle correctly. Apparently, not many people can.

The great giraffe challenge and its strange punishment seems to be some sort of social media chain mail — if you can’t supply the right answer via private message to the poster, you have to repost the riddle and change your photo — which has led to the game spreading like crazy across the social network. There are even heated discussions about what the correct answer actually is. The riddle goes something like this:

It’s 3:00 am, the doorbell rings and you wake up. Unexpected visitors. It’s your parents and they are there for breakfast. You have strawberry jam, honey, wine, bread and cheese. What is the first thing you open?

While the most popular answer seems to be “the door”, “your eyes” has also gained some traction, with users arguing that the riddle doesn’t state that your eyes are already open and others countering that it is implied, as most people don’t wake up without opening their eyes or realise their parents were visiting on instinct alone.

There were some early rumours that the game was actually part of a hack, but it seems it’s just a harmless game — albeit one that has started to annoy some of the participants’ friends.

Gonna take some time off Facebook until this giraffe business blows over.

— Carina Ferera (@poepiekoekie) October 29, 2013

I cannot deal with Facebook and all of their stupid games. Stop it. Why is everybody’s picture a giraffe??? Ugh.

— Smiley (@Smiley_FacEsS) October 29, 2013

While opening your eyes or your door seems like a good idea, the actual correct answer may actually be one of the food items listed. If your parents are popping over in the middle of the night, perhaps you should be reaching for that bottle of wine?

Image: Adam Foster via Flickr.