It may just be a photo of an egg on a plain white background, but this image changed the world on January 4, 2019. When the year started, marketer Chris Godfrey discovered that the current holder of the most likes for one image on Instagram was a picture of Kylie Jenner’s infant daughter. Godfrey decided that he wanted to try and beat that record.

It took nine days for the picture of the egg to gain more likes than Jenner’s image, and therefore, claim the world record for the highest number of likes for a single image on Instagram. The story behind the egg went viral and media around the world went out in search of the man who created the image and the challenge, and why.

The Story Behind The Post

According to an interview with the New York Times, Godfrey saw the stat from Jenner’s post as a challenge. He then wondered if something as simple as an image of egg could beat that number. Why the egg? Godfrey said that it is something universal about it. An egg has no religion, no race, no gender – it’s something that everyone can relate to.

The idea for the post started to come together. The caption was a challenge to everyone on Instagram to work together to set a world record. The account name: Egg Gang. On day nine after posting, the image reached the necessary just over 18 million likes to beat Jenner’s post. The reach of the egg is still going over a year later. At the time of writing, the post had over 54.3 million likes and 3.2 million comments with more being made every day.

Many have tried to take credit for the success of this post. Some critics or sceptics have claimed that Godfrey must have paid a huge sum of money, like you could win when online betting in Australia, to influencers to give the post such a massive boost in such a short space of time. However, the creator of the account says that it all happened completely organically. Godfrey has said that the biggest demographic that helped the spread of the egg image was young people in schools.

The Instagram Account Today

Since the first image went viral in January 2019, the Instagram account has grown from strength to strength. The handle is @world_record_egg and they have over 6.8 million followers. The account is run by Godfrey and two of his friends, C.J. Brown and Alissa Khan-Whelan, and they manage to keep it fairly active.

The team behind the egg decided to give the inanimate object a personality. The description of the account says that it’s all about the “highs and lows of an anxious egg”, who they have named Eugene. The egg deals with a range of situations that are very relatable, including the impact of the coronavirus pandemic, the trials of insomnia, New Year resolutions, being single and other everyday things that we all go through. The idea is to spread a message of positivity and encouragement to the world.