Excuse me while I go place 44 snails on my face

It doesn’t matter how silly the record is, as long as it’s a world-beating one, you’ll feel a sense of achievement, it seems.

BECAUSE the Internet exists and I was procrastinating, I found myself looking for the strangest world records. And I was not disappointed.

Some of the weirdest? The most shirts worn, 260. The most snails on someone’s face, 43. Longest ear hair, 13.2cm, and the most married person ever, which was a woman from the United States who was married 23 times. That’s a lot of weddings.

Of course, talking about records immediately conjures the idea of The Guinness Book of World Records, now known only as Guinness World Records, since no one reads books anymore. The origin of the Guinness World Records lies in a hunting trip with Sir Hugh Beaver, the managing director of Guinness Breweries in Dublin, when he wondered what the fastest game bird was. He realised he couldn’t confirm it and thought there would be demand for a book that chronicled such information. And thus The Guinness Book of World Records was started; specifically on Aug 27, 1955. (And the fastest game bird, by the way, is the red-breasted merganser. Yeah, I didn’t guess that either.)

The idea of world records was hugely popularised by the book. Guinness World Records, which began by collecting factual information but more and more became a way for people to achieve a world record and become “officially amazing”, a title bestowed on everyone who has a Guinness World Record.

So what would drive someone to litter snails all over their face, or put on over 200 shirts at once? Being able to say they have a world record. Even if it’s ridiculous.

An article in the Atlantic magazine on the subject of why people want to achieve seemingly trivial world records delves into the psychology behind the urge. Simply put, it’s the sense of achievement. Even if the achievement is silly.

It still takes work. And Guinness World Records doesn’t allow just anybody to declare themselves world record holders. The publication gets around 50,000 applications for breaking records every year but only about 5% become actual world records. So even the most trivial world records are diligently verified.

But still, why go to all the trouble of making sure everyone knows you put on the most socks in 30 seconds? It’s about a sense of accomplishment. The same thing that pushes someone to run a marathon or write a book is at work. Everyone wants to succeed but not everyone gets the chance. By making your own silly world record, you can succeed at something.

And Guinness World Records states it can’t be anything subjective. You can’t declare yourself the world best looking person or something like that, but you can say you were voted best looking person a world record-breaking number of times. Guinness World Records need to be measurable and beatable. In the end, it’s human nature to want to distinguish ourselves from the crowd. We all want to think we’re special. And if you can say you actually have a world record, even if that world record is for playing the violin while riding a bicycle backwards – which actually sounds silly but would require an impressive amount of skill – then you’ve managed to set yourself apart from the crowd.

All the silly and trivial world records are really just an outlet for people who want recognition but don’t know any other way to achieve it. And honestly, when I think about some of the records, they seem much more achievable than some of the goals I’ve had in my life. Who needs to try to write books like I do? Spend a year writing, then spend years editing, years to get a literary agent, more years to try to get published, ultimately failing ... when I could have just put a bunch of snails on my face and got the recognition I deserve.

I suppose it just depends how good you would feel about the achievement. Even if I did put a bunch of snails on my face and become a world record holder, I wouldn’t be hugely happy about it. Not much to brag about there, and the photos wouldn’t look particularly cool.

That said, the less work one has to do to become a world record holder, the more appealing it sounds. Would I like to work for years training snails to sit on my face so I could be the world record holder of snails on a face? Nope. But if I can go in my back garden, slap a bunch of snails on my face and become an official Guinness World Record holder with minimum effort? Now that is starting to sound a little better.

Please excuse me. I need to go find 44 snails.

Avid writer Jason Godfrey – a model who once was told to give the camera a ‘big smile, no teeth’ – has worked internationally for two decades in fashion and continues to work in dramas, documentaries, and lifestyle programming. Write to him at lifestyle@thestar.com.my and check out his stuff at jasongodfrey.co. The views expressed here are entirely the writer’s own.