Luke Barber

The Rise (and Demise?) of Egg Boy

Words and arT By Luke BarBer

Nearly two and a half years ago, a young, name/less boy cracked his way into the hearts and minds of Australians when he threw an egg against the back of the skull of a particularly abhorrent Australian Senator who was saying some particularly abhorrent things in the wake of the Christchurch shootings. The moment was captured on film and quickly went viral – and Egg Boy became a media sensation.

While seventeen at the time, Egg Boy is now a nineteen-year-old Egg Man, and, though most of us have likely fried the whole incident out of our memory, he still maintains a sizeable social media presence, with 321,000 followers on Instagram alone. In the excitement of the viral spread of the clip, thousands of Australians, including me, rushed to follow him across social media platforms.

It’s not hard to understand why Egg Boy (whose name is actually William Connolly, but who I will continue to call Egg Boy) became an overnight sensation. The tragedy of the Christchurch shootings caused a moment of reckoning for Australia, and the symbolism of a member of the public taking such a memorable stand against racist speech resonated for many. The amusement of watching an egg being splattered against a grown man’s head (and said man getting very angry in response) provided some light in the context of this tragedy. Further, I think young Australians were excited to see someone so young finally cut through the media’s coverage of Australian politics.

But also, lest we forget that everybody had an opinion on Egg Boy, and there is nothing quite like divided public opinion to hard-boil someone’s status as a minor celebrity. There were the pro-Egg Boy groups, those who thought he should be praised and rewarded for standing against racism at a time when

Muslim Australians and New Zealanders were incredibly vulnerable. And on the other side, we had the anti-Egg Boy clan, who felt strongly that he had poached former Senator Fraser Anning’s freedom of speech, demanding he be arrested for assault.

Then there were those who agreed with his politics, but disagreed with his methods. And those who feared that his actions might mobilise support for the disgrace of a Senator he scrambled. With hindsight, the results of the 2019 election indicate that this last concern was a little overblown; in fact, according to Muck Rack, a media analytics company, more than half of all articles online mentioning Anning’s name, and three quarters since mid-2019, mention the word ‘egg’ in them – a fairly conclusive depiction of the legacy his time in Parliament has left.

So, nearly two and a half years on, where is Egg Boy now? To answer this question, I turned to his Instagram, which helpfully (and somewhat wildly) appears to have remained relatively unfiltered and publicly chronicles his life as far back as 2013 (for those doing the maths at home he was in primary school then).

Having stated he doesn’t have a job, he appears to have made a living for himself, at least for the time being, by being a public figure. For what it’s worth he has found noble causes that he is passionate about to work on: mental health and climate change to name two. Following the egging, he also raised a tonne of money for the victims of the Christchurch attack. Plus, he is always appearing alongside national treasure Magda Szubanski in his role as an advocate for using the creative arts to regenerate bushfire affected areas. A good chunk of his posts are him hanging out with Magda and doing various charity and advocacy works. Which is great! Good on him! All ticks from me!

And then there are a lot of posts that are simply him having a nice time with his friends: at school, on holiday, at the beach etc. This is also fine!! Good for him!! I hope he is having a nice life!!

And then there is some weirder stuff.

From about February last year, Egg Boy started to post inspirational quotes on dramatic backgrounds. You know, the type your aunty puts on Facebook that show an autumn leaf and the caption “You can’t start the next chapter in your life if your [sic] still reading the last one”. Real Mum energy for someone idolised by young people.

Then there are a series of incredibly erratic videos of Egg Boy standing in front of a whiteboard, crazy eyes, hands in the air, delivering a speech with block text overlaid reading things like “You are not your thoughts. Learn to unlearn!” or “Thinking about the past can manifest into depression!”. At first I thought he was just yolking with these videos, but having watched far too many of them, I can attest that they are incredibly earnest and, in fact, quite unsettling.

And finally, in June this year, Egg Boy made a video sharing a conspiracy that called into question the accuracy of PCR tests for COVID-19. You may have heard about it. While Egg Boy initially left this post up (covered with an Instagram-supplied warning about misinformation) after the controversy that ensued, it has since been taken down.

What exists in its place is a video of Egg Boy, visibly frustrated, attempting to, in his own words, “justify himself” following the scandal.

“Making this video to justify myself… I don’t usually like justifying myself…but I have a

big platform that I can help a lot of people with and people’s perceptions of me are important to how many people I can help.”

In the video, he goes on to state that he isn’t a COVID-denier, but just disagrees with the media’s portrayal of the pandemic. He says his big issue is that there should be more public health messaging circulating to encourage people to boost their health by doing things like taking Vitamin C and hugging their dogs to generate oxytocin.

So...where does that leave Egg Boy’s status as an idol? Is it okay to give a nineteenyear-old a platform to broadcast whatever thoughts are on his mind on any given day, just because he egged an unpopular pollie as a minor? Do we need to cancel Egg Boy? Does it even matter? I think the answer is not so clear cut… People contain multitudes. Egg Boy can simultaneously have done good for the world through his fundraising and charity work and have ventured down a path with his public platform that gradually moved towards dangerous conspiracy-peddling. In fact, it shouldn’t be surprising at all to us that the seventeen-year-old boy who we thrust into the limelight so suddenly might, while starting with very good intentions, have pushed the envelope of his influence too far. What we need to grapple with is the fact that many of us were happy to put this boy on a political pedestal and magnify his voice so much for simply throwing an egg at the back of someone’s head, without any further information about his beliefs.

If we had good political leaders to fill this void, then maybe all the undue attention Egg Boy received might have been directed elsewhere.