Cooking up other news, the mysterious egg gang continues to grow by one a minute. Said gang’s only motive is to make a world record with one ordinary photo: an egg. It’s not a rare egg, free range, organic or exotic: just an everyday brown egg.
The post, which began to create a world record of likes, challenging Kylie Jenner’s current record of 18 million likes, is spreading like wildfire. Today it has 46 million likes and more than 2.6 million comments. Plus, the account @world_record_egg — now sporting a verified blue tick — has garnered over 7.3 million followers. Even Ellen DeGeneres made an appeal to the egg to be on her show. That’s when you know you’ve made it.
The hashtag #egggang has reached more than 78k posts and the creatives the handle has given way to are far more hilarious.
How does a post of an egg get such a landmark number of likes? Well, a comment on the post makes it easier to understand: “An egg is the easiest way to cook. A lot of things can be made with egg.”
Clearly, there is a lot of sentiment attached to the egg. Especially in the Indian context, land of the ‘eggetarians’ who are neither pure vegetarians, nor meat-eaters, but go all out when they see a burji.
The humble egg finds a place in Chef Mandaar Sukhtankar’s team as well. Mandaar is with Windmills Craftworks, and to work with him you have to pass the omelette test. “I give them the fluffy omelette challenge. If they manage to make one without leaving it uncooked, I know they have it in them to make it to the chef level,” he says.
It must be admitted, here that many ‘likers’ have no egg politics at all. They say they liked the post because it was the easiest and most effortless way to contribute to a post with the potential to set a record.
Then, there are the converts. Umang Daga, a young design professional who comes from a vegetarian family, says he completely understands the strong sentiment that eggs trigger.
“Born into a Marwari family, I have taken an unusual liking to the egg. I have been eating eggs without any worry since childhood. Now, since I work out and like to maintain my muscle mass, my coach — Bilon Aristotle — makes me eat about 23 eggs a day. That’s my protein fix,” he explains, flexing his biceps jokingly. But... what about pimples and flatulence as the common notion goes? “Every six eggs I eat, I drink a litre of water and it keeps my system clean and cool,” he says.
Umang isn’t the only one eating eggs so he can flex through a muscle-fit tee shirt. Alay Razvi, a lawyer, says he sometimes doesn’t know how to get through his quota of 21 eggs. “Initially, it is fun. Then it begins to become a task to eat that many. Twenty-one on a daily basis is no joke. But the coach knows best. So I just listen. Eat now... crib later,” he smiles.
Meanwhile, egg lovers who insist the post deserves more attention are going all out to support their favourite egg . Especially because the post ‘appears’ selfless with the handle owner choosing to remain anonymous.
Looks like egg_gang is here to rule. Despite having just a single post, the handle has even inspired a line of merchandise, including $40 hoodies that simply state “I liked the egg.”
