On January 4, the account @world_record_egg was created on Instagram with the goal of posting an image of a brown chicken egg and having that become the most liked picture on instagram. Within 10 days the post surpassed Kylie Jenner’s most liked post of around 18 million, and is now currently over 52 million likes.
With the Kylie Jenner post, it was the first photo of her daughter Stormi, whereas the egg post, was just an egg. While I care about Kylie Jenner and her child about as much as an egg, at least her post meant something and had substance to her followers that “liked” it, the egg was just an advertising campaign. This idea is supported by the fact that the creators partnered with Hulu, to promote them revealing who the creators were, Chris Godfrey an advertiser and his colleague Alissa Khan-Whelan.
Then after they broke the record and showed off who the creators were, and after partnering with a massive streaming platform, probably garnering lots of money from the partnership, almost a month later on Feb 3, it was revealed by the creators on Hulu that the egg was promoting a mental health campaign, after several more posts showing the egg becoming increasingly cracked, yet this feels completely like back tracking in order to make themselves look good.
If this was the initial goal, to promote mental health awareness, why did they not say that in the beginning instead of waiting till after they became an ad for a streaming service. Why not just accept the fact that the egg was just a marketing ploy to try and become the most liked image on Instagram? They couldn’t accept this because we live in an age where “everything has to have a meaning and purpose, it can’t just be an egg, it has to be more, it has promote something, and what's something everyone can get behind? Mental health, it’s easy, you don’t have to talk about about anything that no one will be offended by, Just say that you want to raise awareness to something that affects X amount of people throughout the world and boom you’ve given your egg a purpose.
According to a New York Times interview, the creators have received many offers from multiple companies, as well have refused to speak on the amount they were paid to partner with Hulu, while touting that they only really cared about spreading positivity. This way of marketing was able to reach millions of users, yet could not feel more disingenuous. The whole situation leaves a bad taste in my mouth, from the way the creators talked in interviews, to the back tracking to shower themselves in a golden light instead of just being okay with having a picture of an egg break a world record.
Logan Carr is a freshman studying political science at Ohio University. Please note that the views and opinions of the columnists do not reflect those of The Post. Did you see the movie? Let Logan know by emailing him at lc300918@ohio.edu.
