Carter Wilkerson, 16, just wanted some chicken nuggets. Now, he has more retweets than Ellen DeGeneres — and a year's supply of nuggets from Wendy's. The New York Times reports that he just beat the record for the most-retweeted tweet of all time, all in the pursuit of some fast food.
Wilkerson had jokingly tweeted Wendy's, asking how many retweets he'd need for a year of free chicken nuggets. Wendy's responded with an ambitious 18 million. "Consider it done," Wilkerson responded. On April 5, Wilkerson tweeted his request for retweets to the world, and he ended up breaking a Twitter record a little over a month later. As of Tuesday morning, he had 3,438,091 retweets.
Though he didn't hit 18 million (yet), Wendy's decided that breaking a record was enough, and gave him the year of free nuggets. They also donated $100,000 to their coporate charity, the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption, which works to find homes for kids in the foster-care system. Wilkerson is also raising additional money for charity on nuggsforcarter.com.
Of course, that means that America's sweetheart, Ellen DeGeneres, now has to resort to second place for her Oscars selfie, which has a mere 3,430,521 retweets.
She started a campaign on her show to keep her status, and even had Wilkerson on her show. She promised him a fancy television and a year's supply of show-themed underwear if supporters retweeted her tweet along with his.
On Tuesday, Wilkerson apologized to Ellen for besting her … sort of. She hasn't yet responded to her Twitter defeat.
Update, 2:10 p.m: Ellen responded, and it looks like she's sending the selfie-taker himself to take back what's hers.
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