‘Cracking’ the Mental Health Stigma
6th February 2019
Just over a month ago a photo of an egg was posted on Instagram… since then the egg managed to capture the attention of millions and break a world record previously held by Kylie Jenner. The Record-Breaking Egg has officially become the most liked picture on Instagram, with 52.4 million likes (as of 06.02.2019). Build up for the egg started 04th January 2019 when @world_record_egg posted a photo of an ordinary brown egg with the caption: “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.”. Okay… so just another viral, pointless internet sensation right?..
A series of images showing the egg slowly cracking had been posted on Instagram since the original image, followed by one where the egg was made to look like an American football…
The egg did something different from what many previous viral internet sensations had done before in the surprise Super Bowl advertisement spot: it confessed vulnerability. It owned up to a need for help and it encouraged millions of viewers to do the same.
The ‘Egg Gang’ responsible for the Instagram sensation state that the account was originally designed as a fun way to challenge and question social media. However, the popularity of the account rapidly morphed into an opportunity to focus on mental health and to encourage people to speak out.
It turns out that the egg was cracking under pressure from social media, all part of a publicity campaign for Mental Health. Highlighting that we are all prone to pressures that weigh enough to make us all ‘crack’, that this is okay and no one needs to try and fix their ‘cracks’ alone. #wegotthis.
The animated video depicted the egg (complete with a little face) which said:
“I’m the world record egg (you may have heard of me).
“Recently I’ve started to crack.
“The pressure of social media is getting to me.
“If you’re struggling too, talk to someone. We got this.”
(followed by the web address for mentalhealthamerica.net #talkingegg)
The video was initially shown on ‘hula’ but the egg’s account quickly also shared the video on their Instagram page captioned: ‘Phew! I feel so much better now. If you’re feeling the pressure, visit http://talkingegg.info to find out more. Let’s build this list together ’
The website consists of various mental health service links that are there to help anyone who might be ‘feeling the pressure’. Also included on the website is an email that’s purpose is to allow individuals to submit other mental health organisations and services to add to the list.
But why an egg?? When speaking to the New York Times, Godfrey (the man behind the egg) had this to say: “An egg has no gender, race or religion. An egg is an egg, it’s universal.” – No biases, just like mental health issues hold no biases, they can affect any one of us, at any time. We can all crack under the pressures we face, but similarly, we can come back from the cracks and we don’t need to do this alone.