The World Record Egg: a Good Message

by Claudia Bishop

I am sure that many of you have heard about the world record egg. It seemed like a passing trend I heard about non-stop for about 2 weeks. For those of you who don't know what this was, on the 4th of January an Instagram (@world_record_egg) was created with one photo posted of an egg. The creator of this Instagram told everyone to share and like this photo to get it to be the most liked photo of Instagram. Surprisingly this actually worked and the egg now has 52,678,756 which exceeds the mere 18,715,844 likes of the previous most liked photo of Kylie Jenner's baby announcement.

You may be asking what this means. This seems simply like another trending joke that would die out instantly much like the yodelling Walmart kid. Both of these viral posts have a short shelf life and can be shown when looking on google trends.

  

However, I believe that the world record egg is actually a lot more important than what meets the eye. After its infamous first post, the account kept on posting other photos of the egg that seemed to be cracking. Most people ignored this as the joke seemed to be dead by now. On the 4th of February the world record egg posting a video. This video was a way of showing that the pressures of social media can lead to people “cracking” and advised the viewer to seek help if they needed it. They have set up a website https://www.talkingegg.info which is set up by country with websites to go to if you are suffering from mental health issues.

Personally, I was very proud that someone of my generation would use such a large following to spread such a positive message. I even went to my Instagram to share my thoughts. “I’m so genuinely happy that someone of our generation used a huge following to give such a great message. These days it’s so hard to believe that someone with such a big following and influence can actually care for followers. Logan Paul, imjaystation and Instagram comedians who promote rape and sexism are a few people who abuse their influence for personal gain. I honestly think this is ridiculous and we should all want to spread more positive messages to our friends and people around us. Maybe more people would feel safer”. I feel this Instagram account was actually very beneficial for our generation and its reputation. Many YouTubers and influencers are very selfish these days and exploit their fanbase to get more money. I think we should all try to spread a positive message like this egg and help the people around us to normalise the conversation of mental health.