Carter Wilkerson, 17, was "heartbroken" when Wendy's responded to his April 2017 DM asking how many retweets he'd need to get free nuggets for a year. He never would've imagined he'd end up with the most retweeted tweet of all time (...and a year's worth of nuggets). More than a year, almost $1,000-worth of nuggs, and a Katy Perry music video later, Carter told Delish what life post-mega-viral fame is like, including the Wendy's hack that changed his life the most.

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HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS pic.twitter.com/4SrfHmEMo3 — Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) April 6, 2017

Tell me about the aftermath of your tweet blowing up. What was that like?

Oh boy. Well, it blew up pretty much overnight. Within weeks, it was a flurry of me getting all this attention from interviewers, and from friends at school and stuff. Within a month, I was on the Ellen show. If you told me a month before that it was gonna be that crazy, I wouldn’t have believed you. Looking back at it now, it felt like so long during those few weeks, but it really was a short period of time.

When you tweeted that screen grab, was there any part of you, that thought it would actually turn into a thing, let alone one as big as it actually did?

No way. When I first tweeted it, I didn’t even expect a response, I just thought "Oh, maybe I’ll get lucky because Wendy’s is pretty active [on Twitter] and has those sarcastic comments and stuff," but I thought if they did respond it would be something crazy, like "100 million retweets, good luck." When they did respond with "18 million," I was still a little heartbroken because I was like "that’s still not possible," but I said "consider it done" and put it on my Twitter page. I didn’t get to 18 million but got pretty far up there. [Ed. note: At the time of this post, Carter's tweet remains the biggest of all time, hovering above 3.6 million retweets and almost a million likes.]

And here we are! Besides Ellen, what do you consider to be the wildest thing that happened in the aftermath?

I can think of a few different things, but I’d say the wildest and most unexpected is that I had the chance to be in a Katy Perry music video. It was after the Ellen thing and after I beat the [most tweeted tweet of all time] record, so I thought it was kind of died down and over, but I got this call from some discreet source, [saying] they couldn’t tell us what or who they were working for, but they asked if I wanted to be featured in a music video and I was like "Yeah, that sounds amazing!"

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Once I figured out all the information, I learned it was Katy Perry's [video] and she brought me down to L.A. We filmed the ‘Swish, Swish’ music video and I had a little, two-second clip in the beginning where I was holding her dog whose name is Nugget. He was the cutest thing I’d ever seen. I was doing that while I was eating chicken nuggets and laughing at her [Ed. note: Carter appears about 16 seconds into the video]. So that was probably the craziest thing.

Now we’re a little bit more than a year out after the fact. Does this in any way still affect you on a daily basis?

Definitely now it’s kind of gotten back to normal. I wouldn’t say on daily basis, but maybe on a weekly basis, somebody recognizes me out and about in Reno, or [my friends and I] go to Wendy’s and they recognize me. I’m about to go to college and I’m pretty excited for that. That’s kinda what I’ve been focusing on for the last few months. But things have died down and I’d say I’m happier this way. I enjoyed the attention for a little while and it was definitely an experience I’ll be able to tell my kids about, but I don’t know if I could live the celebrity life forever [laughs].

How did this all work? Were you given a "free nuggs for a year" card and told by Wendy's to have at it?

So the way they did it was they gave me $1,000-worth of gift cards. They'd done the math and figured if I got a 4-piece every day for a little more than a year, that’s about what it would cost. [The flexibility of having the gift cards] was kind of nice because I didn’t have to just get chicken nuggets. I could get chicken nuggets and a Frosty, or chicken nuggets and a drink, or even a hamburger if I was a little more hungry, but that’s what I did normally, I’d get chicken nuggets and fries and a Frosty, so it was nice to have a little bit more of a balanced meal, if you could call fast food a balanced meal [laughs].

How often were you actually going to Wendy's and eating nuggets?

I would say I went probably 2-3 times a week. In the beginning [of the free nugget year] it was tough, because I was playing football that whole summer and the beginning of that fall, so I was trying to not eat too many chicken nuggets because I knew it would affect me. So I laid back until the winter came, and then I maybe started going 3-4 times a week at the most.

How much of that $1,000 do you have left, or are you done?

I’ve saved a little bit of it, but it’s been tough. I’ve been trying to save some for when I go off to school, because I know the college lifestyle is tough [laughs], so I might want to treat myself once in awhile with that. I probably have about $100.

Were there any Wendy’s menu hacks you discovered in all your time there?

Hmm. This is probably more of a known one but my favorite things to do with Frosties is to dip your fries in them. I think that’s almost as good as chicken nuggets. It’s, like, heavenly. Once you do it, you’re never gonna stop. Hopefully most people don’t know that and I enlighten them.

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If you had to put together a dream meal from every fast food restaurant you had access to, what would it be?

Oh, that’s tough. I’m gonna go with Wendy’s — one of my favorite foods is the Baconator, I love that one. I’d do the Baconator combo with a fresh lemonade and a small vanilla Frosty and a 10-piece chicken nuggets. That’s, like, my go-to lunch meal if I’m super hungry.

Anything major reflections on your life after viral fame?

I’d say if anyone ever gets this opportunity like I did to just enjoy it. You don’t have to make something out of it. Just have fun with it and do whatever you want to do with it. That would be my advice.

Con Poulos

Tess Koman Senior Editor Tess Koman covers breaking (food) news, opinion pieces, and features on larger happenings in the food world.

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