A pretend Fb occasion disguised as a math downside...

An almost year-old Fb occasion for a “easy maths competitors” has been one of the vital viral posts on the platform for six months. The “occasion” racked up about 51 million views on Fb throughout the first quarter of 2025, based on the corporate’s latest report on “extensively considered content material” on the platform.

That might be a powerful stat for any single publish, but it surely’s the second quarter in a row during which the “maths competitors” has nabbed the quantity two spot on Meta’s checklist of extensively considered content material. It additionally appeared on final quarter’s report, throughout which period it acquired about 64.3 million views, based on an archived model of the report.

So why is a random Fb occasion that is not likely an occasion getting greater than 100 million views? It might appear to be a repackaging of an outdated engagement bait tactic. The header picture for the occasion is a picture of a chunk of paper with the phrases “just for genius” adopted by a seemingly easy equation. When shared as a Fb publish, the picture is prominently displayed in a manner that will seem like a standard picture publish. The picture additionally has some hanging similarities to different seemingly basic math equations which have been going viral on Fb for nearly 15 years.

A take a look at the occasion web page itself reveals that tons of of 1000’s of individuals have engaged with the occasion. Greater than 800,000 folks responded to the supposed July 8, 2024 occasion. Even now, almost a yr later, the occasion is seeing common feedback from Fb customers — most of whom are intent on earnestly explaining how the equation needs to be solved (or arguing with others’ interpretation). As Slate famous again in 2013, there’s one thing irresistible about arguing fundamental arithmetic with strangers on the web.

What’s a little bit of a thriller is why this publish has gone so viral months after it was initially posted. I reached out to the account behind the publish, a Nigerian-based creator named Ebuka Peter Ibeh and did not instantly hear again. The publish appears to be way more profitable than every other current posts from Ibeh, who has about 25,000 Fb followers.

In any case, the publish gives an attention-grabbing window into the sorts of weird content material and questionable ways that also repeatedly goes mega-viral on Fb. Meta not too long ago mentioned it will crack down on creators sharing spammy posts on Fb, although it is unclear if this sort of engagement bait would fall underneath the class of content material it is explicitly making an attempt to discourage.