Bustle
By Mika Doyle
February 3, 2019
A
major mystery has finally come to an end: the purpose of the
Instagram’s world-record egg has been revealed. After the 2019 Super
Bowl on February 3, 2019, a one-minute @world_record_egg commercial ran
on Hulu, highlighting a powerful and creative message about mental
health.
The world-record egg became an overnight viral sensation
after the photo of a brown egg on a plain, white background was posted
to Instagram on Jan. 5, according to CNET. The caption to the post
challenged people to make it the most-liked Instagram post of all time,
saying, “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.” The internet rose to the challenge, and the
world-record egg currently has upwards of 52 million likes on Instagram.
It
only took 10 days for the internet to beat Kylie Jenner’s current
record, BuzzFeed News reports. Since reaching its initial goal, the
account has posted four other photos leading up to the big reveal. Each
was of the same brown egg on a plain white background, but the egg had
more and more cracks in it with each new post. But the account holder
has remained anonymous, says BuzzFeed News, although it sometimes
responded to messages from the media. Like it once told BuzzFeed News
that it was a chicken named Henrietta from the British countryside, but
it told Mashable that the egg’s name was Eugene.
Then on Feb. 1,
the account posted the photo of an egg with the same number of cracks as
before, but this time it looked like a football. The caption read, “The
wait is over. All will be revealed this Sunday following the Super
Bowl. Watch it first, only on @hulu.”
During the Hulu commercial
right after the Super Bowl, the cute, insta-famous cartoon egg greeted
us and then slowly began to crack before our eyes, saying social media
pressure was getting to it. Then, a fully cracked egg lifts its arm up
and points to a prompt that tells viewers that if they’re starting to
crack too, there’s always someone they can talk to. “We got this”, the
egg says, now with a smile. Then, the video points users to
mentalhealthamerica.net.
While the egg’s big reveal may seem surprising–its important message about mental health is being applauded on social media. As user @linipanini330 put it, “As someone who experiences mental illness myself, I was in tears watching this one minute clip. It’s time to #erasethestigma.” User @carolaskyn said “MoreThe World Record Egg reveal on @hulu was tremendous. Shout out to the #EggGang creator for using their 15 minutes of (anonymous) fame/massive reach for good. #TalkingEgg.[“]
Seeing the most-liked Instagram post tied to a campaign about the importance of mental health not only gives visibility–and a lot of it, the @world_record_egg has 10 million followers–to such an important topic, but it gives hope to busting [the] stigma surround[ing] mental health once and for all.
Questions Using Close Reading and Critical Thinking:
- The first section of an article should answer the questions “Who?”, “What?”, “When?”, and “Where?” Identify the four Ws of this article. (Note: The rest of the news article provides details on the why and/or how.)
- Does this article have any bias? Why or why not?
- How long did it take for the egg to beat Kylie Jenner’s record?
- Why do you think the original photo of an egg became the most-liked Instagram post of all time?
- Explain the message of the cracked egg. What did the creators want to communicate to their followers and the world?
- Do you think that using an egg and Instagram fame was an effective way to communicate this message? Explain your reasoning.
- At the end of the article, the author says that this Instagram campaign “gives hope to busting [the] stigma surround[ing] mental health once and for all.” Define the word stigma. Then explain how the egg can be viewed as helping to destroy the stigma about mental health.
Click here to view more: www.bustle.com/p/the-instagrams-world-record-egg-revealed-important-message-about-mental-health-after-the-2019-super-bowl-15920671