North Central students confuse world with 'who's the mom' selfie

Tina Brown had just picked up her identical twin 16-year-old daughters from school at North Central High School on Jan. 28 when one took a selfie of the three in the car.

One of the twins, Kaylan Mahomes, tweeted it to her 200-ish followers with the caption: "Mom, twin & me."

It got a few retweets from friends. Then a few from their friends.

And then, it went viral.

"I was just posting a random picture and just thinking it would get around to my friends and not the whole world," Kaylan said. "It was just retweet after retweet."

More than 30,000 retweets later,  people around the world have driven themselves crazy debating which of the three was the mom (who, spoiler alert, is on the left in the black blazer). It's kind of like black and blue versus white and gold, with less fighting among close relatives. But it didn't go viral right away. It took about five days, and then the media started calling — virtually all at the same time, Brown said.

"I came home and (Kaylan was) like, 'Mom, I think we've gone viral,' " said Brown, 35, a hospice nurse in Indianapolis. "It just started getting more tweets and started being put on blogs, then on Facebook, then on TV. We really can't even keep up, honestly."

To help keep up with the demand from local and national media requests, they've hired a talent agent. They've created a Gmail address and an Instagram account. Kaylan now has more than 26,000 Twitter followers. They've appeared on so many shows and talked to so many reporters, they can't keep count.

But Brown, whose youthful appearance has confused hundreds of thousands across the world, isn't used to the attention.

"It’s very flattering," she said. "I don’t normally have this much attention. It is fun to a point, but it can be a little bit overwhelming."

It's almost been two weeks since the original tweet, and they're all trying to live life as normal. Kaylan is running for North Central prom queen, and Kyla is on the cheerleading team. Both hope to be pharmacists but will look at other opportunities that come up along the way.

"We don’t expect anything to come from it," Brown said. "However, if something comes of it, scholarship opportunities, that would be wonderful. Like, modeling opportunities for the girls, commercials, anything like that."

Call Amy Bartner at (317) 444-6752 and follow her on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram.