Eugene the Instagram Egg finally cracked under the pressure of social media scrutiny last night, and the event, aired exclusively on Hulu, was revealed to be a public service announcement advocating for mental health awareness.
The 20-second-plus animation – watch it below – was the latest (and initially unplanned) development for the Egg that broke Kylie Jenner’s record number of Instagram likes. The brainchild – as finally revealed yesterday by The New York Times – of 29-year-old London ad man Chris Godfrey, the brown Egg made its first mysterious Instagram appearance on January 4, under the name World Record Egg, with the simple: “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”.
That first Egg Instagram currently has 52M likes.
The second Egg was posted January 18, but this time had a tiny crack near. Three other Instagrams followed in the following weeks, each with increasing crackage. Finally, on Feb. 2, the Egg appeared, more cracked than ever, and with a football stitching down its side. The message: “The wait is over All will be revealed this Sunday following the Super Bowl Watch it first, only on @Hulu”.
The Hulu reveal, now available to watch on Instagram, was an animated short in which the Egg cracks and collapses, with a caption reading: “Recently I’ve started to crack. The pressure of social media is getting to me. If you’re struggling too, talk to someone.” The animation directs viewers to Mental Health America’s website.
Godfrey, who told The Times he developed the Egg concept with several friends, said the idea initially was simply to beat Jenner’s record. The Egg’s widespread popularity led to the teaming with Mental Health America, which Godfrey told the newspaper will be “the first of several causes” the Egg will help promote.
Within four hours of the animation’s posting on Instagram today, the Egg has scored nearly 5 million likes.
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