The #bowwowchallenge has blown up, filling the internet with hilarious examples showing that what we project on social media doesn't always match up to reality.
Seventy-two hours later, the star - who still hasn't taken down the original post, even after one fan clocked that it was likely just a picture he'd nicked from Google images - has broken his silence.
And while he bizarrely insists there's a "method to his madness", he does at least have a sense of humour about the situation.
"I took the Greyhound here this morning," he joked during a US radio interview today.
"I love it because people don't understand the scientific method to my madness. They really don't understand the scientific method to my madness. Number one, I'm about to have the biggest show on We Tv, period. Period. I'm saying that right now."
He's talking about his new reality show, Growing Up Hip Hop Atlanta - what that has to do with his Instagram fakery, we're not sure.
"You gotta just watch the show," he said. "Everything is for the show."
But Bow Wow insisted that being the laughing stock of the internet hadn't upset him it all.
"It doesn't affect me, it doesn't affect the women, it doesn't affect the bank, it doesn't affect anything," he said of the internet mockery. "I feel like people who react to certain things, I feel like that's how they would react if it was on them."
Then there was this bonkers Instagram post from earlier today:
There you have it: Bow Wow is most definitely not mad.
