Carter Got His Wendy’s Nuggs And A Twitter World Record

By Jeff Beer , May 09, 2017

On April 5th, 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson tweeted at Wendy’s asking how many retweets it would take to get a year of free chicken nuggets. The fast-feeder’s reply? 18 million. And while he hasn’t hit that milestone just yet, the 3.42 million retweets of the Nevada high schooler’s original tweet now surpasses Ellen’s infamous Oscar selfie for Samsung as the most retweeted of all-time.

Wendy’s has declared that milestone as good enough for the 12 months of free nuggets. On April 1, Wilkerson had 138 followers. Now it’s over 100,000, and #NuggsForCarter has a custom emoji featuring a box of Wendy’s nuggets. He got some help along the way with retweets from other brands and celebrities getting in on the fun.

In addition to the year-long nuggfest, Wendy’s has also donated $ 100,000 in Wilkerson’s name to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption.

 

It’s a feel-good story all around, one brands desperately need after the social media dumpster fires lit by United and Pepsi over the last month (et tu, Dove?). But let’s not kid ourselves. If Oreo’s 2013 Super Bowl tweet has taught us anything, it’s that with any one-off social brand success, we must now brace ourselves for the cavalcade of copycats that will undoubtedly follow. Please, resist the temptation.

 

Fast Company

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