A tweet about chicken nuggets just broke Twitter’s all-time retweet record

carter wilkerson wendys tweet most nuggets retweeted

It’s not often Twitter users see more than 1000 retweets for a single tweet, let alone 3.5-million, but that’s what internet famous nugget-loving teenager Carter Wilkerson achieved this week.

Ousting previous record holder Ellen DeGeneres for posting the most retweeted tweet of all time, Wilkerson has single-handedly turned the humble chicken nugget into a meme.

In total, his tweet now boasts over 3.5-million retweets, compared that 2014 Oscar selfie with 3.4-million retweets.

While he’s still nowhere near that 18-million retweet milestone Wendy’s set for “a year of free chicken nuggets”, the company has (kind of) confirmed that he’ll get a few nuggs. It didn’t state how much or how often though.

It’s not just Wendy’s that got in on the hype.

Lord of nuggets, Carter Wilkerson’s tweet has accrued 3 536 500 retweets, reclaiming Twitter’s record from Ellen DeGeneres’s 2014 Oscar selfie

Wilkerson has been the subject of other brands’ mentions along his road to stardom, including Twitter itself, Apple and Microsoft.

United Airlines also tried, but, uh, failed. Miserably.

Remarkably, after his fascination with nuggets has been revealed to the internet, Wilkerson now features a verified Twitter account and over 115 000 followers. To put that into perspective, he boasted just 4000 followers a day after his record-breaking tweet was sent.

That’s a gain of around 100 000 followers in just over a month.

But will he ever get those 18-million retweets though? Well, he’s now only 14.5-million away.

Andy Walker, former editor
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