How Jennifer Aniston’s Friends reunion selfie broke Instagram and set a world record
Jennifer Aniston apologised after her first Instagram post – a Friends reunion selfie – broke Instagram and set a world record in less than six hours
“Move fast and break things” may be Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg's much-quoted motto, but he may want to pass it on to one of his platform's newest, record-setting users: Jennifer Aniston.
The 50-year-old Friends star joined Instagram on Tuesday (October 15) morning, US time. If that wasn't enough to cause a stir, the first photo she posted from her account was a selfie featuring her fellow co-stars from the beloved show: Lisa Kudrow (Phoebe Buffay), Courteney Cox (Monica Geller), Matt LeBlanc (Joey Tribbiani), David Schwimmer (Ross Geller) and, of course, Matthew Perry (Chandler Bing).
The speed with which Aniston picked up Instagram followers beats a record previously held by the account @sussexroyal, the official feed for … Prince Harry and Meghan Markle
Almost immediately, news of Aniston's Instagram debut led to an influx of followers, likes and comments – which spurred technical problems and made it difficult for some users to follow Aniston's account.
“I swear I didn’t mean to break it,” read Aniston’s second, and only other, post a day later. “Thank you guys for the kind, glitchy welcome”.
But while the issues have since been resolved, there are some things that remain broken. Guinness World Records announced a day later (on October 16) that Aniston had broken the record for the fastest time for an Instagram account to reach one million followers, reaching the milestone in just five hours and 16 minutes.
The speed with which Aniston picked up Instagram followers beats a record previously held by the account @sussexroyal, the official feed for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex, Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. They reached one million followers in April in a time of five hours and 45 minutes.
Before that, the record belonged to the K-pop star Kang Daniel, who reached one million followers in 11 hours and 36 minutes.
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