We do not yet know who posted the egg on Jan. 4, why it was posted, or why this attempt to set a record actually worked.

Nor do we offer grand perspective on why this happened. Sometimes, the will of the internet just bends in peculiar ways, and in this case, the internet decided it was into that egg.

Still, you would scoff at the cultural significance of the egg at your own peril. For perspective: Last year’s top television show in the United States, “Roseanne,” averaged 20 million viewers per week, and about 27 million watched the Oscars. If everyone who liked the photo created a new city, it would be the world’s largest by several million. The egg’s fans have passed the population of Canada.

At that scale, internet frivolity starts to look a little less frivolous.

It’s not the first time that internet users, showing a thirst for chaos, have displaced meaningful record holders in favor of a lighthearted gag. In 2017, the internet coalesced behind Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old high school student who set a Twitter record for retweets after asking Wendy’s for free chicken nuggets. (He was recently dethroned by a Japanese businessman, under the handle @yousuck2020, who got more than five million retweets when he offered about $9,250 to 100 random people who retweeted him.)

The comments on Ms. Jenner’s birth announcement, now Instagram’s second-most liked post with about 18.3 million likes, were covered in egg. The egg’s supporters taunted her, often using the egg emoji or simply the word “Egg.”