Football star Lionel Messi’s viral Instagram post from the 2022 FIFA World Cup has become the most liked social media post of all time, even surpassing Bella Poarch’s famous ‘M to the B’ TikTok.
Argentina took home the victory at the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar, marking a long-awaited comeback since the country’s last World Cup win in 1986.
Lionel Messi, the star of the show, posted a celebratory photo to Instagram to commemorate the occasion, showing himself lifting up the coveted trophy for the camera lens. The post also contained several other photos from the iconic moment, including a heartfelt statement on taking home the trophy for Argentina after such a long time.
According to reports, the post racked up over 43 million likes in 24 hours’ time — and now, it has become the world’s most-liked social media post ever.
Source: Instagram screenshot @leomessi
At the time of writing, Messi’s photo has accrued over 66.5 million likes, beating out Instagram’s previously viral ‘world record egg’ pic with 55 million likes and numerous other posts about his own chess match against Cristiano Ronaldo.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg also reacted to Messi’s post adding that during the World Cup final, WhatsApp reached a record of 25 million messages per second.
Messi’s Instagram photo becomes the most-liked social media post of all time
It has even beaten out every single other post on any other social platform, including a record-breaking post made by Bella Poarch in 2020.
Poarch, a TikTok star and music artist, first broke onto the online scene with her viral clip lip-syncing to the song ‘M to the B.’ Her simple head-bopping moves and facial expressions saw the short video garner over 60 million likes.
(Click here if the TikTok video is not playing)
In comparison, Twitter’s most-liked post is a Tweet announcing the tragic passing of actor Chadwick Boseman in 2020, which has over 7 million likes.
Messi’s World Cup photos have also surpassed YouTube’s most-liked video, the Despacito music video, which currently holds over 50 million likes.
Poarch’s clip still ranks as TikTok’s most-liked post of all time — but it looks like Messi’s Instagram post has beaten it out by over four million likes.
Thus far, Poarch hasn’t yet responded to her hugely viral clip being overtaken by one of football’s biggest stars… but it’s clear that Argentina’s win has captured the hearts and minds of fans all across the globe in a huge way.
