16-year-old Carter Wilkerson’s tweet is catching up on Ellen DeGeneres’s Oscars selfie but still has a way to go to get the 18m retweets needed for free food

How one teen's plea for free nuggets became one of the biggest tweets ever

All Carter Wilkerson wanted was some free chicken nuggets – now he has one of the most retweeted tweets of all time.

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

The 16-year-old’s request for a year’s supply of chicken nuggets from American fast food chain Wendy’s has been retweeted more than 2.2m times – making it the third most popular tweet of all time, and the most popular of 2017 so far.

To put this in perspective, Ellen DeGeneres currently holds the record for the most retweeted tweet ever. Her star-studded Oscars-night selfie has held the record since 2014, with 3.4m retweets. In second place is One Direction’s Louis Tomlinson with a tweet dedicated to bandmate Harry Styles that scored 2.4m retweets, knocking Barack Obama’s “four more years” tweet (900,000+ retweets) from second place last year.



This is the internet, so we wouldn’t rule out shenanigans just yet, but nugget-lover Wilkerson seems to be legitimate. He did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment, but spoke to USA Today last week. The teenager from Nevada said the whole thing started as a joke.

Carter Wilkerson (@carterjwm) Next time I eat these they better be free @Wendys pic.twitter.com/ZvxwpiLAeD

He said: “I sent out the tweet as a joke, but then they responded with the outrageous number.

“I thought ‘Consider it done’ would be funny among my friend group. Then I put the screenshot up and it started gaining momentum.”

His father, J Wilkerson, told USA Today they had talked about perhaps donating the year’s supply of nuggets. He added: “My wife and I think it’s great if it has a great cause other than eating chicken nuggets for a year. It would be great to solve a life crisis. But also it’s nice to have some whimsical news.”

But how did a random tweet from a teen about nuggets get so big? The answer lies with brands.

Wendy’s has become known on the internet for its irreverent attitude on Twitter. In January, its uncorporate-like tweets were noticed by the press after it had a mini Twitter war about fresh ingredients:

Katy Wellhousen (@KatyWellhousen) .@arb plz tell me you did this pic.twitter.com/S21oFOZwXk

Wendy’s VP of advertising Brandon Rhoten told Mashable in January: “The intent of the social media team is to represent the brand’s voice as best as they can.

“When folks say, ‘roast me,’ we’re going to have fun with that.”

The Wendy’s social media team, whose Twitter account has 1.61m followers, ran with the whole thing, exposing the tweet to a wider audience via Twitter’s quote tweet function:

Wendy's (@Wendys) 1 Million?!?! Officially SHOOK https://t.co/XZ1AafXo2p

They also retweeted celebrities who’d endorsed #NuggsforCarter.

Sniffing an opportunity for easy advertising, other brands lined up to get involved, either tweeting their support:

Amazon (@amazon) Live your best life, Carter. Follow your dreams. #NuggsForCarter https://t.co/PbHd9JMQjE

Or offering free stuff:

John Legere (@JohnLegere) Hey @carterjwm, sorry you have @ATT. Switch to @TMobile & I'll give you a year of free @Wendys chicken nuggets myself + more! Seriously. https://t.co/RmVygHPPob

Mattress Firm (@MattressFirm) Hey, @carterjwm! Hit 18m and we've got your food coma sleep pack ready. You're gonna need it 😏. #NuggsForCarter cc: @Wendys https://t.co/nwe39wFL0x

United (@united) If you get the 18 million RTs, we'll give you a free flight to take you to any @Wendys in the world in a city we serve. Good luck! https://t.co/igxnPg1JUF

And naturally, the whole thing has become the talk of Twitter.

Whether Wilkerson will succeed in his quest is another matter. Twitter says it has 313m active monthly users. To reach 18m retweets, he will have to be retweeted by about 5.7% of Twitter’s active users.

What happens next? Well, Wendy’s has yet to respond beyond eye emojis. They also did not respond to the Guardian’s request for comment.

There’s also a strong likelihood he and a representative from Wendy’s (perhaps even the person who sent the 18m tweet) will end up on Ellen DeGeneres’s show, which regularly features viral stars. After all, Wilkerson’s tweet could well overtake DeGeneres’s record-breaker.