A Nevada teen has officially broken the world record of most retweets for a single message by begging for free chicken nuggets from Wendy's fast food chain. How many retweets you may ask? 3.5 million retweets since April 5th. Yes, you read that correctly. 3.5 million retweets for free chicken nuggets. Not world peace, not for world hunger, not for saving the whales, but for free chicken nuggets from Wendy's for life. That's not exactly true as the teen has since sold shirts with the #NuggsforCarter hashtag in an attempt to raise $100,000 for the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
The previous world record for retweets was held by Ellen DeGeneres at 3,430,270, for the selfie that shook the world during the 2014 Oscars telecast. That tweet has since seen a recent uptick thanks to the free nugget controversy. But her numbers pale in comparison to teenager Carter Wilkerson. On April 5th, 2017, Carter used his Twitter account to ask Wendy's how many retweets it would take to receive free chicken nuggets for life. Wendy's promptly responded that it would take 18 million retweets to get the prize that he desired. Wilkerson responded in the only way that he could with, "Consider it done."
Major corporations and celebrities have jumped on board since Wilkerson's tweet went viral. Support from Apple Music, Google, Aaron Paul, T-Mobile CEO John Legre and even DeGeneres has poured in. DeGeneres had Wilkerson on her show to try and persuade the teen to stop his campaign by offering him a 55" TV and a lifetime supply of Ellen underwear, but Wilkerson declined. Now that Wilkerson has beat DeGeneres, Wendy's has awarded the free nuggets for life to him despite not getting to the nearly impossible 18 million retweet goal. In addition, Wendy's has donated $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.
It's hard to imagine a world without Twitter, but it has only been around for 11 years. The social media platform was said to be the result of a daylong brainstorming session by the podcasting company Odeo. According to a current estimate, over 350,000 tweets are now sent worldwide per minute, which equals about 5 million tweets a day and 200 billion per year. Just think, over the last month, 3.5 million of those tweets have been about chicken nuggets.
No word yet on how many chickens this kid takes down, but one has to imagine it to be Seth Rogen amounts, which isn't quite Willy Nelson, but it's up there in numbers. And while Wilkerson started this absurd campaign for free Wendy's nuggets, it's nice to see him use some of his newfound fame for good. Wilkerson's mom is a stage 3 breast cancer survivor and has encouraged his followers to donate to Pinocchio's Mom on the Run, an organization that provides services for women diagnosed with breast cancer and their families. Plus Wendy's is excited for all of the free promotion and gladly donated the $100,000 to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.