Turns out the most-liked picture on Instagram – a humble speckled egg (feature image)- is actually an advertisement about mental health.
Just a few weeks after becoming the most-liked photo on Instagram, Hulu revealed the news post-Super Bowl on streaming service Hulu in a one-minute video.
The picture of the egg, which garnered more than 52 million likes in less than a month, originally was thought to be an attempt to “set a world record together” by surpassing the then most-liked photo of Kylie Jenner with her newborn baby.
In the video released yesterday, the egg said: “Recently I’ve started to crack, the pressure of social media is getting to me”.
The video ended with a link to mentalhealthamerica.net, which is a community-based NFP that addresses the needs of Americans living with a mental illness.
Before Hulu released the video, both BuzzFeed and Mashable reported the name of the person and agency they believed to be behind the account – Chris Godfrey from The&Partnership in London – which turned out to be true.
In an interview with The New York Times, the creators said mental health is the first of many causes that the egg will come to stand for.
Alissa Khan-Whelan, one of the friends working with Chris Godfrey told The New York Times: “People have fallen in love with this egg, and Eugene the egg wants to continue to spread positive messages,” said Alissa Khan-Whelan, 26, one of the friends working with Godfrey.
The Hulu video, which was touted as a post-Super Bowl reveal on the egg’s Instagram page had many followers worrying the egg would turn out to be an ad for a product or new TV show.
The reaction on social media after the reveal was mostly positive, however, some people were hoping the reveal would be something bigger.
It remains unclear whether the World Record Egg started as a prank and morphed into something more, or this was the intention of Godfrey all along.
