Hey guys, I haven’t written for the Hive Ghana weekly engagement prompt in a while and thought I should give this week’s Guinness World Record topic a try.
A few years back, the Guinness World Record used to be held in so much prestige because for a name to be documented there, it probably means the person in question achieved something very rare. Of course that is not to say that the Guinness World Record’s reputation has taken a hit or anything. The point I’m steering at is that recently, the records that enter their archive are all sorts of hilarious things.
It’s turned more of a joke than a sign of achievement like it used to be. Years ago, news about the Guinness World Record covered things like the Longest Marathon Run achieved by a person, or say footballers with the highest career goals and stuff like that.
Today, I shit you not, there’s someone on live doing a broadcast of a wash-a-thon, longest hand washing exercise performed by a human. There’s also write-a-thon attempt on TikTok or wherever it was I saw it. Of course, this doesn’t make these any less of achievements, but it just undermines what type of records we consider achievement enough to document in such a (previously) high esteemed record book.
At this point, maybe we should start giving every new born baby a Guinness World Record for being the youngest human alive as at the time they were born. Matter of fact, where is Nikocado Avocado’s record for eating all that damn food?
One thing I will say though is that Hilda Baci’s record attempt at the longest Cook-a-thon was probably what broke the news out to (excuse me to say) Africans that there was something called Guinness World of Records and that they could make attempts to become record holders too.
Shortly after Hilda’s record break, I knew shit was about to get silly when Chef Dammy (shout out to Nigeria😂) embarked on her Cook-a-thon to break Hilda’s record which hadn’t even seen a month yet. Now, people, I’m not trying to make fun of her or anything, but we all agree that that was a bit petty, no?😂
Other people might disagree with me and argue that she was just doing her own thing too, and that’s totally fine.
Just in about a 3-month timespan, we’ve had the cook-a-thon record broken twice already, with Chef Faila (Jah Bless Faila😂😂😂😂) currently underway to break and seal that record with her 10 days (240 hours) cooking attempt. Yeah she doesn’t like competition, so she wants to make it so that the next person that tries to break the record has to either be hospitalized, or dead. Dead men hold no records.😂
I think we can all agree that Guinness Book of Records entered the wrong continent. People will come up with all sorts of silly records to set because no one else is even thinking them.
You know, I was actually thinking, with all the superstitions about magic and witches flying and all that, maybe one esteemed witch might want to grab onto the title of the highest altitude reached on a broomstick early enough before the others come for it. Just saying.
Anyways, I should probably end here before the Guiness World Record gives me a record for being the first person that was sued by the Guiness World Record for creating satire out of them. Lol
all images are mine