The world’s most-liked photo on Instagram is now an image of a single egg with a white background.
It might not look like much but the image has been liked more than 23 million times.
It’s quite an achievement for an unassuming egg.
The speckled egg managed to achieve the world record in less than 10 days, simply by appealing to the trolling culture of the internet.
“Let’s set a world record together and get the most like post on Instagram,” the post read.
“Beating current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million).
“We got this!”
When the campaign began, the most-liked photo was of Jenner’s newborn, Stormi, posted on February 7, 2018.
But the popularity of the egg image surged after it was posted on January 5, rapidly gaining a huge following.
How did it become so popular?
The photo tagged some of the world’s biggest viral websites, including LADbible and Buzzfeed, as well as shouting out to The Ellen Show and late-night TV host Jimmy Fallon.
It was produced by a mysterious entity called the Egg Gang and is the only photo posted to the @world_reccord_egg Instagram account.
According to a report from Buzzfeed, the person behind the account isn’t actually a person — it’s supposedly run by Henrietta, a chicken from the British countryside.
And the now world-famous egg has a name — Eugene.
The account holder reportedly came up with the idea to challenge Jenner’s most-liked photo after they “stopped drinking for Dry January” and found themselves home on a Friday night.
They spent the evening reading an article about the top photos on the social media platform, deciding cracking the 18 million mark would be a good challenge.
“It was nothing personal,” they told Buzzfeed.
Eggy backlash
Supporters of the egg have taken to taunting Jenner, posting egg emojis in the comments section of her daughter’s birth announcement.
Some have simply commented the one-word burn of “egg”.
Jenner has since responded to the egg’s popularity by posting a video of her cracking an egg on hot pavement.
“Take that little egg,” she wrote.
Viral trends
The record-breaking photo is reminiscent of the effort behind the world’s second-most popular tweet, in which a tweet about a man trying to win a year’s supply of chicken nuggets quickly became a Twitter sensation.
Of course, the internet rallied behind Carter Wilkerson’s request, however it did not surpass the 18 million retweet benchmark set by US fast food chain Wendy’s.
Thankfully, Wendy’s still offered Mr Wilkerson a year’s supply of chicken nuggets.
Last week, Mr Wilkerson’s tweet was dethroned as the most popular of all time, with Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa’s offer of a 100-million-yen ($1.2 million) prize garnering 5.2 million retweets.
While the motivation for those retweeting Mr Maezawa’s offer is clear, the explanation for the egg’s popularity could be put down to the quirks of internet culture.
The internet allows users to rally together and highlight a particular cause, without relying on major media organisations to do so.
Sometimes, as we’ve seen, people choose to wield this digital power purely for a laugh.
But the mastermind behind @world_record_egg speculates the reason behind the egg’s popularity could be something beyond our own comprehension.
“The power of the egg is strong,” the account holder told Buzzfeed.
Source: ABC
