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The Wendy’s Chicken Nuggets Kid Just Broke the Record for Most Retweeted Tweet

by Derrick Rossignol
May 9 2017 • 10:00 AM

In case you somehow haven’t heard, the internet has been obsessed with a singular quest for the past month. Carter Wilkerson is just a high school kid from Nevada who, as a quick joke, asked Wendy’s via Twitter how many retweets he would need to get in order to earn free chicken nuggets for a year. The restaurant set the bar at a lofty 18 million, so Wilkerson got to work.

That was on April 5th. Improbably, his tweet has been getting all sorts of attention since then, and it’s finally come to this: Today, Wilkerson’s tweet surpassed Ellen Degeneres’ famous Oscars selfie as the most retweeted tweet of all time, currently sitting at over 3.4 million retweets.

Wilkerson is far short of the 18 million he and Wendy’s originally agreed on, but the eatery decided breaking the record was impressive enough and is paying up anyway. The restaurant posted a photo of Wilkerson holding up a certificate and what looks like a handful of gift cards, and captioned it, “.@carterjwm is now the most retweeted tweet of all-time. That’s good for the nuggets, and $100k to @DTFA. Consider it done. #nuggsforcarter.”

There’s more to this story than a kid getting a bunch of chicken, though. A few weeks ago, Wilkerson updated his objective, saying that if he broke Ellen’s record, Wendy’s would give $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation, which helps find homes for children in foster care. The guy got his nuggets, Wendy’s got a bunch of free promotion, and the Dave Thomas Foundation will be able to do more good in the world. The only loser here is Ellen, although we’re sure she’s taking this in stride.

Did you become a part of history by retweeting Wilkerson? Or do you have some sort of problem with good, clean fun? Let us know in the comments!

Featured image: Phil Denton/Flickr