Featured Image Credit: LinkedIn / Nikolas Kokovlis/NurPhoto via Getty Images
Topics: Social Media, Instagram, Mental Health, Viral
Joshua Nair
Topics: Social Media, Instagram, Mental Health, Viral
The man who was behind the most liked Instagram photo ever revealed that it was all a 'fluke'.
Social media was a lot more simple a few years ago - think back to a time pre-TikTok, when Instagram reigned supreme as the most popular app among phone users.
Short viral videos were associated with the deceased social media app known as Vine, while we were all about getting the perfect snap for golden hour and making collages on our Instagram stories.
However, one man wanted to take the app over, with one post anyway, and succeeded with nothing but a simple egg.
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Back in 2019, Kylie Jenner broke the Instagram record for having the most likes on a single post after sharing a photo of her newborn baby Stormi's hand holding her thumb, with over 18 million likes at the time.
But with the thinking of Chris Godfrey, an advertising executive from London, and his pals Alissa Khan-Whelan and CJ Brown, things were about to change.
They decided to hatch a plan by seeing if they could knock Kylie off the podium with nothing but a picture of a plain egg.
Alongside the image, they wrote: "Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram. Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this."
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And much to everyone's surprise, the plan worked - soon enough, the picture rose to online fame and quickly toppled the influencer from the top spot.
At the time, the post received 19 million likes, but this figure soon jumped to over 50 million, with it now sitting on over 61 million. Pretty impressive, eh?
But the story doesn't end there. Shortly after the image first came into existence, two more photos appeared on the same account showing the famous egg starting to crack.
Days after the mysterious posts, the world found out that the egg - who's called Eugene apparently - was cracking under the weight of pressure from social media fame and it was all part of a publicity campaign for Mental Health America.
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In an advert aired during the 2019 Super Bowl on Hulu, the egg (complete with a little face and everything) said: "I'm the world record egg (you may have heard of me).
"Recently I've started to crack. The pressure of social media is getting to me."
It added: "If you're struggling too, talk to someone. We got this," before highlighting the contact details for the mental health organisation (mentalhealthamerica.net).
Back in 2019, Chris - who was 29 years old at the time - spoke to The New York Times about the stunt and how it went on to become a viral sensation.
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Prior to this, Andrew Essex, chief executive and founder of Plan A, a creative holding company, told the outlet: "The fact that they were able to get a lot of people to look at a picture of the egg - it was the ultimate anomaly, just a complete freak event."
He added: "This is the quintessential fluke. It’s not replicable. It’s not replicable and it’s not sustainable. With all due respect."
Although Chris agreed with the statement, he said: "But it’s a fluke that caught the world’s attention. It’s what you do with that attention that counts."
Now, Messi holds top spot for the most-liked Instagram photo following his post after winning the World Cup in 2022, with Eugene the egg at number two.
It's nice to see that they used the egg's power for good, though. Cracking stuff.