Asking why a tweet goes viral is like asking why your life has brought you to this very moment. Perhaps it’s random, perhaps it’s divine, perhaps it’s unknowable. No mere human, no Kardashian nor YouTube star, can decide. When some 140 characters run aground while seemingly equal tweets are hoisted to the heavens, anyone searching for meaning should expect a long, long voyage.

Anyway, the Nugget Kid will be getting his free chicken nuggets.

On Tuesday morning, Carter Wilkerson, a 16-year-old high school junior in Reno, Nev., became the owner of history’s most-retweeted tweet, knocking Ellen DeGeneres and her famous Oscars selfie off her perch. (For those unfamiliar, a retweet is the act of sharing someone else’s tweet so a new audience can see it.)

When he sent his fateful tweet on April 5, he thought it might be a fun joke for his friends. He had never gotten so many as 10 retweets on a single tweet before, he said, so topping that would be kind of cool.