A teenager with a love of Wendy’s chicken nuggets has displaced Ellen Degeneres as the author of the most-retweeted post on Twitter.
Just over a month ago, Carter Wilkerson asked Wendy’s via Twitter how many retweets he’d need to get a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. The company’s response? “18 million.”
Sure, that was almost 15 million more than the record holder at the time, Ellen’s Oscar selfie, but that didn’t stop Wilkerson. Soon, it became a cause of sorts, endorsed by stars like Aaron Paul. Giant companies like Microsoft and Google jumped on-board too, because that’s the world we live in now.
HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3
— Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017
As a result,Wilkerson’s Twitter following has grown from 138 followers to more than 100,000. That tweet has been retweeted 3.42 million times — not quite 18 million, but it’s a new record.
And yes, Wendy’s says it’s giving him a year’s supply of free nuggets, and it’s making a $100,000 donation to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in Wilkerson’s name. After all, the fast food chain received some amazing publicity in the process. (Before this, I didn’t even know Wendy’s nuggets were a thing.)
I guess what I’m saying is: One tweet has probably made Wilkerson more famous than you will ever be, and he’ll be feasting on chicken nuggets for the next year. Happy Tuesday!