Here's The Story Behind #BigGuyTwitter

"Eye candy for the timeline."

Chances are, #BigGuyTwitter has lit up your newsfeeds the past few days.

Large men are posting selfies with their height and weight, and ladies are posting gifs of appreciation -- and that's exactly how Mike Byrd wanted it.

Byrd, who's 6 feet 5 inches tall and 275 pounds, started the hashtag when he posted a photo of himself May 9 after seeing a news story about a teenager whose prom photo went viral because of negative comments people made about her appearance.

"That really set on my spirit, the culture of social media body shaming breaking a person’s spirits to a point where they can’t love themselves," Byrd told HuffPost.

He decided to repost a photo taken on Mother's Day, tagging it #BigGuyTwitter "as my way of saying embrace who you are and love who you are. Big guy twitter is pretty much about self love, self acceptance," he said.

Byrd, who is a teacher at Thomasville city schools in North Carolina (he had short run on the Oakland Raiders in 2012), said he didn't expect anything to come of it. But the picture went viral, with other guys joining in and women posting their appreciation.

"On the surface, it's providing some eye candy for the timeline, you know, but it really just stems from me being big on self-confidence, self-love and self-acceptance. I know there’s a population of women out there who look at big guys favorably, so I was like, why not? We can be masculine -- we don't have abs, we’re not the most ripped guys, so just enjoy it and love who we are," he said.

If you're a big guy who wants to get a little appreciation yourself, "You gotta be over 6 feet and be at least 200 pounds. That’s the criteria," Byrd said, but he didn't make the rules: "That’s just the thing that’s on Twitter. Twitter’s coming up with its own rules."

Women started a hashtag, too -- #TallGirlTwitter and #BigGirlTwitter have people celebrating even more shapes and sizes.

Check out the Twitter moment below:

Correction: An earlier version of this article misrepresented Byrd's profession. He is a teacher.

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