Opinion: Guinness World Records May Not Make You Popular – Simon Uche

Guinness World Records doesn’t make you popular. The titles also doesn’t necessarily make you famous. In fact, the records won’t also guarantee you endorsements or accolades. It simply immortalizes your name on the famous records of Guinness World Records without any guarantee of popularity.

There is one Vincent Okezie from Aba who works in a Mechanic Workshop in Abia State. He has more than four Guinness World Records but isn’t popular. (His image is attached). Nobody knows him except a few persons. His social media handles are not even known.

Lata Tondon, the holder of the title Hilda contended for had less than 20 followers on Twitter and less than 30 thousand followers on Instagram. It was in fact Hilda’s trend that brought her to the limelight. These people were record breakers but still didn’t become popular.

Make no mistakes about it, Hilda Baci was already a celebrity before attempting to break a record, she worked hard and invested in good PR. Guinness World Records didn’t make her trend. In fact, you only got to know about the previous title holder because of Hilda’s attempt.

There are so many people who won other titles that we don’t know about or will ever know about. So, don’t think that attempting to break or create a record will give you much needed fame. You may not get the kind of result Hilda got. Hilda is a celebrity and a content creator. The shout outs she got from celebrities were because she is kind of a part of the industry.

She wasn’t just an ordinary cook, she has always been a celebrity chef. She also got sponsors and her social capital was part of what made some sponsors look her way. Other sponsors simply didn’t find sense in what she wanted to do despite her status.

You saw the location? The team? The media? The creatives? All of those didn’t just happen! She was heavily invested in them! Do you know? She wasn’t the only one who worked throughout that four days, she had assistants who were as resourceful in the project as she was.

So, don’t think that Hilda baci woke up one day, decided to do a challenge and everything fell into place. Nothing fell into place, everything was rather put into place NOT only by planning but by proper financing.

She has gotten the needed fame, the attempt was just a means but not necessarily the sole target. Much part of the objective has been achieved. If you didn’t know Hilda Baci before, you know her now! If you weren’t talking about her before, you are talking about her now.

She isn’t the title holder yet but brands wants to identify with her, politicians are in a race to be the first to talk to her or talk about her. She has become a national symbol, an icon that will be discussed in social studies someday. All of these were achieved without any endorsement yet from Guinness World Records. So, the recognition from the GWR will add only a little spice to the whole thing. It’s like the icing on the cake, not the main cake.

Many of us want to be popular, not for popularity sake but because of the things we can achieve with that popularity. Hilda Baci didn’t just set out to break a record, she set out to become more popular than she already was taking advantage of her connections, resources and relationships.

We all talk about how she went to the gym to prepare and become physically fit for the occasion but we don’t talk about how much she spent in that gym. It wasn’t just any ordinary gym. It was a “celebrity gym” with top class gym instructor. So, you might as well need a gym but you may not be able to access her kind of gym if your pockets aren’t as full as hers.

If you were getting to know about Hilda for the first time, you may be deceived by the “modest domestic” appearance. You might even say “Ah! This poor girl should win this! She really need it!” Someone even said she was an ordinary chef before now! No! Hilda owns a popular “celebrity” food company!

So, just before you decide to jump into the moment to be like Hilda, it’s important that you understand these things and reevaluate your decisions again and how you intend going about it.

Author: Mr. Simon Uche