Instagram gives us a glimpse into the lives of approximately 1 billion people worldwide. And now? They’ve added one more.
Jennifer Aniston made her Instagram debut on Tuesday, posting 1 photo alongside some famous Friends. She captioned it with:
And now we’re Instagram Friends too. Hi Instagram https://www.
In less than an hour of posting the selfie with former Friends co-stars Courtney Cox, Lisa Kudrow, Matt LeBlanc, Matthew Perry, and David Schwimmer, Aniston had already amassed 116,000 followers and hundreds of thousands of likes.
And in the process, she gave the ‘Gram a whole new meaning to “We were on a break”.
Her page temporarily crashed, leaving some fans unable to access her site. Many of them took to Twitter to voice their disappointment.
Everyone in the world is trying to follow Jennifer Aniston on Instagram at the moment and it won’t let me…. #amsad
— mikaela rae ? (@mikaelarae) October 15, 2019
Same, I couldn’t find her acc too at first then I saw ew post tagging her but I can’t follow her ???
— Bev (@nerds4lifee) October 15, 2019
Is anyone else having trouble with following her or is it just me??
— Bev (@nerds4lifee) October 15, 2019
Jennifer Aniston joined Instagram and broke it. A QUEEN.
— as? (@realityxash) October 15, 2019
Instagram reassured their users that technical glitches are rare and they were taking it very seriously.
“Hey, just so you know: it’s NOT that common, it DOESN’T happen to every guy, and it IS a big deal!” I’m totally kidding. They should have though.
Instead they responded with the following statement to People:
“We are aware that some people are having issues following Jen’s profile — the volume of interest is incredible! We are actively working on a solution and hope to have it up and running smoothly again shortly.”
Obviously the programmers at Instagram could use a lesson in the art of Unagi. For those of you who need to be enlightened, Unagi, according to Ross Geller, is a “State of total awareness, only by achieving true Unagi can you be prepared for any danger that may befall you.” Dangers like an Instagram page crashing.
According to the Oxford Dictionary, Unagi is a “Freshwater eel used as an ingredient in Japanese cooking.” But whatever. Unagi.
It didn’t take long for Insta to get the page back up and running and to date it is already sitting at 7.9 million followers – and counting.
Guinness World Records has just crowned Aniston with the fastest time to reach one million followers on Instagram, 5 hours and 16 minutes, beating out Harry and Megs who reached the million milestone in 5 hours and 45 minutes.
While Aniston may not be a real princess, she IS celebrity royalty. She has had numerous famous friends welcome her to the ‘Gram fam, including:
Salma Hayek – “Welcome to the madness”
Jessica Capshaw – “What is happening?!?! Forget it, I’m not going to question it. I’m just going to be grateful and enjoy it…says the entire fandom. Yayayayay!!! Love it, love YOU!!!”
Kate Hudson – “Whoa girl!!!! Here we go!
Reese Witherspoon – “YASSSS!!! Welcome to Insta Jen!!!”
Mariah Carey – “Yaaaay! Welcome to Instagram, Jennifer! It’s a moment.
Lisa Kudrow – “Woo hoo! WOOooooOOO!!”
Even Netflix got in on the action with a set of praise hands.
Praise be.
While we’re all hoping this picture means a reunion movie is in the works, sadly, it’s never, EVER, going to happen. At least, according to an interview Aniston did with Variety.
When posed with the question why there wasn’t a Friends movie, she responded:
Because our producers wouldn’t want it, wouldn’t let us. Look, it’s not been without our desire to, because our fans have wanted it so much.
We do Jen. We really really do. We’ll be there for you. Always. And who knows? Maybe the producers will “PIVOT…PIVOT…PIV-OT!” It’s happened before.
And if not, you can always catch the Friends re-runs on Netflix until the end of 2019.
They paid a reported $100 million for the right to stream the sitcom for one year. Friends originally aired on NBC for 10 years, beginning in 1994. Which means it is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year. And now I feel old.
There are a total of 236 episodes. If you are one of the 2 people in the world who doesn’t currently have Netflix, no need to panic. You can catch it on Warner’s streaming service, starting in 2020.
And if you’re looking for something a bit more recent, you can catch Aniston in her first TV series since Friends, starting on November 1. The Morning Show, which also stars Reese Witherspoon and Steve Carrell will be airing on Apple TV+. The official synopsis from Apple TV+ reads:
The Morning Show’ explores the high-stakes world of morning news and the lives of the people who help America wake up in the morning. Told through the lens of two complicated women working to navigate the mine field of high-powered jobs while facing crises in both their personal and professional lives, ‘The Morning Show’ explores ego, ambition and the misguided search for power.”
Whether it’s on TV, in movies, or on Instagram, it would seem that Aniston is definitely NOT stuck in second gear.