Serghei Platanov, the photographer who originally shot a photo of an egg that defeated Kylie Jenner's record for the most-liked image on Instagram, told INSIDER he was shocked his photo became a phenomenon.
"My goal was to take a simple picture of an egg. For fun. Never ever I could think that it would be a sensation like this," Platanov wrote in an email. "Egg is just an egg."
Platanov has been putting photos on Shutterstock since 2009 under the handle gresei. He's known for photos of richly colored food on stark white backgrounds. He posted the photo of the egg on June 23, 2015. The title was simple and elegant: "eggs isolated on white background."
On January 4 this year, the person running the Instagram account @world_record_egg posted Platanov's photo in a bid to get it the most-liked image on the platform.
"Let’s set a world record together and get the most liked post on Instagram," they wrote. "Beating the current world record held by Kylie Jenner (18 million)! We got this."
Much to Jenner's chagrin, the account succeeded. Its tally is now at more than 45 million likes. The person running the egg account has since monetized it, selling shirts with photos of the egg and saying they'd send a small portion of the proceeds to charity. The user purchased the correct license to put the photo on shirts, a Shutterstock spokesperson told INSIDER.
Platanov said he doesn't use social media, so he wasn't aware his photo went viral until other people told him about it.
"I do not use social networks," he wrote. "It was unexpected for me to find out about such a meme campaign when people started reaching out to me, and it was even more incredible to find out about the number of likes that this meme scored."
He also said that his photo doesn't pretend to be anything other than a simple brown egg. Therein lies its beauty.
"It does not pretend to be an image for getting fans, it does not pretend to be a Fabergé egg or imagining 'Would I look better if I am colored for Easter, what color fits me best,'" he wrote. "It is not hunting for anyone’s attention. It is simple egg."
Platanov's response is similar to that of Antonio Guillem, who shot a Shutterstock-hosted photo that became the "distracted boyfriend" meme in 2017. Guillem told INSIDER at the time that he didn't even know what a meme was.
Shutterstock, for its part, is happy to see the egg become a celebrity.
"It's great to see a contributor, who has been licensing his work through Shutterstock for more than 10 years, have one of his images become a worldwide sensation," Lou Weiss, Shutterstock's chief marketing officer, told INSIDER. "The 'Disloyal Boyfriend' is still making the rounds two years after it first became famous and this year it's the Egg."
This post has been updated.
- Read more:
- An Instagram influencer is 'un-canceling' her $165 creativity workshops despite people calling them a Fyre Festival-like scam
- TikTok users are making memes that don't look like anything else on the internet
- Lil Tay's Instagram account is being used to wage a harassment campaign against her father while a battle over her future continues
- An Instagram influencer apologized after saying it was a 'miracle' someone returned her iPhone in a 'scammy' Indian city
Visit INSIDER's homepage for more.
