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Facebook post breaks a world record—but why?

Commenters came through and broke a world record. Just what did they contribute to humanity? 

 

David Holmes

Streaming

Posted on Jan 31, 2012   Updated on Jun 2, 2021, 10:03 pm CDT

A Facebook post has broken the Guinness World Record for most comments after garnering over a million responses.

And what kind of hot-button issue would inspire such extensive commentary, you might ask? Abortion? Immigration? Moon bases?

Sadly, there was no explosive controversy behind the feat–the commenters did it for no reason other than to break the record.

The ordeal began on Oct. 30 of last year when Tracey Hodgson created a post on a fan page devoted to the game Frontierville. After that, it was off to the races with such profound comments as “xxx” and “lol x.”

Cathy Matthews was one of about 107 commenters who contributed to the record. “I’m no spring chicken anymore and I really haven’t done anything phenomenal,” she told KTXL-TV in Sacramento.

“Once you get the rhythm, you can go pretty fast,” she added, remarking on the relative ease of typing two-letter words in a comment box.

So now that this “phenomenal” feat has been achieved what’s next for the social media pioneers? A Twitter conversation made up of a million tweets? A million check-ins on Foursquare? Filling an empty shed with a million pieces of notebook paper?

“We’ll probably go back to playing our games,” Matthews tells the outlet.

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*First Published: Jan 31, 2012, 9:35 pm CST