Posts That Broke the Internet
A typo, a selfie, a chicken-nugget request and an egg. The posts people still bring up, and who posted them.
Some posts are so famous that just one word brings the whole thing back. Here are the classics. Pay attention to who posted each one, because the quiz asks.
The typo: "covfefe"
Just after midnight on May 31, 2017, President Donald Trump tweeted a sentence about the press that ended in a word that didn't exist: covfefe. It sat there for hours while the whole internet tried to work out what it meant, then got deleted. It's still shorthand for a typo that takes on a life of its own.
The selfie: Oscars 2014
Hosting the Oscars in March 2014, Ellen DeGeneres squeezed into a selfie with Bradley Cooper (holding the phone), Meryl Streep, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt, Lupita Nyong'o, Julia Roberts and more. She posted it live, and it got retweeted so fast that Twitter briefly went down. It became the most-retweeted tweet ever at the time.
The nuggets: #NuggsForCarter
In April 2017, a teenager named Carter Wilkerson asked Wendy's how many retweets it would take to get a year of free chicken nuggets. Wendy's replied: 18 million. He didn't reach it, but he did break Ellen's record for the most retweets ever. Wendy's gave him the nuggets anyway.
The egg
In January 2019, an account called @world_record_egg posted a stock photo of a plain brown egg with one goal: beat Kylie Jenner's record for the most-liked Instagram post. It passed 50 million likes and held the record for almost four years, until Lionel Messi's World Cup celebration post in December 2022.
The $1.3 billion tweet
In February 2018, Kylie Jenner tweeted asking whether anyone else had stopped opening Snapchat since its redesign. The next day, Snap's stock fell about 6%, wiping out roughly $1.3 billion in market value. One tweet.
The blackout tweet
During the 2013 Super Bowl, the stadium lights went out for over half an hour. Oreo's social team quickly posted an ad saying you can still dunk in the dark. It's still taught in marketing classes as the moment brands figured out real-time posting.
The flex that wasn't: #BowWowChallenge
In 2018, rapper Bow Wow posted a photo suggesting he was flying on a private jet. Then someone posted a photo of him on a regular commercial flight. The internet turned it into the #BowWowChallenge: posting fake flexes and then the less glamorous reality.
Pop quiz
0/4 answered
Q1
Who tweeted 'covfefe' in 2017?
Q2
Who posted the 2014 Oscars selfie that briefly crashed Twitter?
Q3
Which account's photo of a plain egg became the most-liked Instagram post?
Q4
Kylie Jenner tweeted that she'd stopped opening which app, and its stock dropped about 6%?