Wowzers.
Not.
As I watched this momentous moment in television go on ... and on ... and on ... it occurred to me that two world records were being broken here. Not just the longest TV kiss, but the most boring television moment in history.
It was quite the achievement, and done without any of the years of training and higher education required by other world-record breakers.
The athletes and scientists will be wondering if they should have pursued a career in reality television instead.
I'm not going to go on about the kiss, aside from noting that it wasn't even an original idea, since the US version of the show did the same thing for 10 seconds less last season. We can almost certainly expect to smash through history here in New Zealand with a kiss 10 seconds longer next season. I can hardly wait.
What the world's most boring moment on TV did make me wonder about is what drives people to break records simply for the sake of it.
We've all heard of the generic semi-pointless records, such as the fastest marathon pushing a pram (seriously ... was NO ONE free to babysit that day?) or the biggest cookie ever baked.
I suppose I can sort of understand what drives such challenges.
But what about the rest?
Did you know the record for the most wooden toilet seats broken in a minute with the head is 46?
Or that the heaviest weight lifted by the tongue is 12.5kg?
Not a patch on the 14kg lifted with an eye socket or the 80.78kg lifted by an earlobe.
Did you also know that the loudest purr recorded by a domestic cat is 67.7dB. More importantly, did you care?
The only thing more pointless than breaking a pointless record is trying to do so and failing.
Such as the man who attracted a large crowd and live TV coverage to demonstrate how many coconuts could be broken with his hand, and the only thing he broke was his hand, or the Kiwis whose attempt to have the most people walk across hot coals saw a fair number also admitted to hospital with burns.
What is it about the human psyche that makes us want to be the best or the first to do something even if that something is without value?
Can we not find a way to value the excellent execution of something completely ho-hum?
It's not the time of year for resolutions but how about we all sit down and have a wee think about how we can do something really ordinary but really useful in an unremarkable way.
It might not make for good TV, but neither does the world's longest on-air kiss.
-Eva Bradley is a columnist and photographer.
