In the space of around four days, social media app Vero has gone from being practically unheard of, to topping app store charts, to being the internet's newest punching bag.

Established in 2015 by the billionaire son of a former Lebanese prime minister, the Instagram alternative earned a handful of mentions at launch and has since languished so low on app store rankings that you couldn't find it on any officially published charts. But then suddenly, earlier this week, it hit number 1 in Apple's US App Store charts, and ranked high in Google Play as well.

With its dark theme and ad-free promises, Vero has set itself up as an alternative to Instagram and Facebook.

A new US-focused advertising campaign targeting disaffected Instagram and Facebook users appeared to do the trick (Vero offers a chronological feed it claims is algorithm-free, does not display ads and says it collects minimal data from its users), and a handful of key influencers promoting Vero prompted thousands of new sign-ups. From there, the online buzz sent a FOMO-fuelled wave of hype through Twitter and other online communities, resulting in hundreds of thousands of app downloads over the past few days.

By Tuesday, Vero was on track to get as many downloads in a single week as it had in its entire three-year existence to date, and while many news outlets were claiming that other people were claiming Vero was "the new Instagram", the general talk online wasn't exactly positive. Most mentions on Twitter at the time were people wondering how Vero worked, what it was, or why they should use it instead of Facebook or Instagram. Many had already signed up for a Vero account, and were pimping their new profiles or asking how to build an interesting timeline.