Dad's Hilarious Post About Son's First Day of School Photos Goes Viral

A dad's post about his son's first day of school photos has gone viral on social media, according to the Independent.

Adam Perry took pictures last week of his young son, whose name he withheld for privacy reasons. He realized the secret to getting his child to crack a natural smile was using one keyword.

Perry posted two side-by-side photos on Twitter of his preschooler son, a boy he described as shy but also sweet and silly with a fun sense of humor. He captioned his Twitter post, which has since gone viral with nearly 300,000 likes. He wrote, "My son when I tell him to smile vs when I yell out 'poop!"

Perry's post goes viral

His son flashed a slightly strained smile in the left photo, but in the right picture, the young boy grins widely in a natural reaction caught on camera.

Perry told "Good Morning America" that they always take pictures on the first day of school, and they were in a bit of a hurry and having a hard time getting good pictures. He said his son always has the funniest smile when trying too hard.

He learned at some point that if he just yelled out "POOP" and snapped the photo quickly, it always worked out way better. He said it was a pretty dramatic comparison, in this case, so he thought he would share it.

It is a strategy that other people say they have employed themselves or been on the receiving end of. Some even said they were curious to try it out on their little children.

One Twitter user replied that it was a neat trick and he was going to try it. Another commenter confirmed that the trick always works for them. Another user said that his mom always yelled out 'buttcrack' to make him and his sister laugh in pictures as kids. He said she even did it at his wedding, and it still works.

The viral post resonated with people

Perry, a children's book author, said he was surprised by how quickly his Twitter post took off and how much it had been shared by people. Perry said he hopes the viral post continues to inspire more laughs and smiles and that it helps other amateur parent photographers like himself, Lancaster Online reported.

Perry wrote in a message to "GMA" that he expected just 5 to 10 people to like it. Much to his surprise, it kept climbing, with the post now having 297K likes. He said it then went on the first page on Reddit, and the post went viral on Instagram and Facebook.

He said that this post must have resonated with people, and he has gotten tons of messages from people who are using this trick and getting great pictures of their children, which is the best part of all this.