Kim Kardashian wedding picture wins Instagram for 2014

How does something like Kim Kardashian happen? It's you people! Yes, all of you on social media! Kardashian's wedding picture with Kanye West is rolling toward the 2014 finish line as the most liked Instagram image of the year. Actually, it's the most liked Instagram of all time, which seems appropriate, given that Kanye was involved.

Since May, more than 2.4 million people have found time to validate Kimye's existence with a click on the pic's red Instagram heart.

We're talking about this picture, showing the newlyweds smooching in front of the wall of flowers in Florence, Italy, that was the backdrop for their vows:

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Zdj¿cie zamieszczone przez u¿ytkownika Kim Kardashian West (@kimkardashian) Maj 5, 2014 at 7:58 PDT

The populations of Hawaii and Montana, added together, fall in the neighborhood of 2.4 million bodies. If every single person in San Diego and San Francisco had clicked that Instagram heart, they wouldn't have hit 2.4 million. If the residents of Swaziland all had Internet access, had two accounts each and adored Kimye, they'd maybe come within a couple hundred thousand clicks of the 2.4-million mark.

Then again, almost as many people follow Kardashian on Instagram as live in Australia, so it could simply be a chicken-and-egg thing -- only 11% of her nearly 23 million followers had to care. Incidentally, those are clicks that can quietly be undone, should the liker have any regrets -- don't ask us how we know.

The Kimye picture got its mitts on the most liked title way back in May when it flew to more than 1.9 million likes after only two days and, after eclipsing a shot Justin Bieber had posted in January of himself and Selena Gomez, never let go.

That Jelena pic from January -- captioned "Love the way you look at me" and featuring teen-dream proximity but no lip lock -- was supplanted late in the year as Bieber's most-liked shot by another one of the couple, below, posted three months ago, around the time the are-they-or-aren't-they chatter was at a fever pitch and the two were jaunting around Canada. Bieber, of course, has even more followers than Kardashian does.

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FOR THE RECORD

6:32 p.m.: An earlier version of this post presented a photo posted in January as Justin Bieber's most-liked Instagram shot for the year. A different picture of Bieber and Selena Gomez, posted in September, is the singer's top shot and appears below. Also, the three images were initially presented as Instagram's three most-liked photos for the year. They are the No. 1 images for the three users who dominated the site's top photos overall.

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A photo posted by Justin Bieber (@justinbieber) on Aug 8, 2014 at 7:37pm PDT

And what would 2014 have been without Miley Cyrus in the mix? Pop pipsqueak Ariana Grande's top Instagram shot, which earned 1.8 million likes, showed the "Bang Bang" babe kissing the "Bangerz" bad girl on the cheek. Not too shabby for someone with only 20.7 million followers.

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A photo posted by Ariana Grande (@arianagrande) on Aug 8, 2014 at 12:35am PDT

Finally, in what could be seen as a triumph of love over lust, it should be noted that the Paper magazine cover shot of Kardashian's naked butt didn't even make it to a million likes. Perhaps the audience for that kind of flesh-flashing image is hanging out on, oh, Pinterest?

Nah, probably not ...

Follow Christie D'Zurilla on Twitter @theCDZ and Google+. Follow the Ministry of Gossip on Twitter @LATcelebs.