Some people really like Wendy’s chicken nuggets. But no one likes them as much as Carter Wilkerson.
A week ago, the Reno, Nevada-based 16-year-old asked the fast food chain how many retweets it would take to get a year’s worth of free chicken nuggets. The response: 18 million. So far, he’s amassed over 2.5 million and they’re growing by the minute.
He’s hot on the tail of the most retweeted post in history, which was Ellen DeGeneres’s selfie from the 2014 Academy Awards featuring Hollywood A-listers including Bradley Cooper, Jennifer Lawrence, Brad Pitt and Julia Roberts. That tweet received over 3.2 million RTs.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Wilkerson said to USA Today. “I’m one of those people who isn’t usually looking for attention. But since it started, it’s been pretty cool. In school, it’s fun because everyone knows about it.”
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He’s also been getting a boost from big name brands like Apple, Google and Microsoft. John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile, even offered to pony up the “nuggs” if Wilkerson switched mobile providers.
For their part, Wendy’s has been egging on the retweets while engaging in a playful back-and-forth with Wilkerson.
Wilkerson’s father wasn’t aware of the brouhaha until his son started receiving interview requests from various news outlets. At that point, he approached his son to discuss the option of donating the nuggets to a local food pantry.
While it seems that the elder Wilkerson wasn’t successful thus far in driving a wedge between his son and his “nuggs,” the teen has decided to spin his Twitter fame into a charitable initiative. He has created a #NuggsForCarter T-shirt. The proceeds will be donated to local breast cancer charities.
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“Ever since I was a young lad, I’ve always wanted to be great,” he writes on his website. “All my friends wanted to grow up to be astronauts, firefighters, policemen or doctors. Me, I’ve always aspired to be a chicken nugget. People say, ‘You are what you eat,’ so I ate chicken nuggets.”