Kid Unseats Ellen, Scores 'Nuggs'

Teen Carter Wilkerson earns a year's worth of chicken nuggets from Wendy's
By Jenn Gidman,  Newser Staff
Posted May 9, 2017 12:32 PM CDT
'Nuggs' Kid Breaks Retweet Record, Wins Lots of Chicken
Carter Wilkerson, aka the "Nugget Kid."   (Twitter)

As Carter Wilkerson prepped for final exams and attended his prom, he also kept dreaming of one other thing: chicken nuggets, and the retweets that would lead him to trayloads of them. The New York Times reports that dream came true this week as the 16-year-old junior from Reno, Nev., known as "Nugget Kid," broke Ellen DeGeneres' record of (at last glance) just over 3.4 million retweets of a single tweet, sent during the 2014 Oscars. Carter's record, which currently boasts about 13,000 more retweets than DeGeneres', has earned him a year's supply of Wendy's chicken nuggets, thanks to a friendly challenge he made with the fast-food chain in early April. Technically, Wendy's had a much higher benchmark in response to Carter's original query, which asked how many retweets he'd need to win 365 days' worth of breaded chicken goodness from the restaurant.

"18 million," was the chain's offer, and some big firms took notice: United even offered to fly Carter to any Wendy's in the world if he reached that goal, per CNNMoney. But Wendy's was impressed enough with Carter's poultry-hungry persistence, taking to Twitter on Tuesday to say his retweet record is sufficient not only for the nuggets, but also for $100,000 it will donate to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption in his name. "You've more than earned our respect," a company rep says in a statement, per the Times. Carter is now trying to use his fame for good, coaxing his 107,000-plus followers to donate to a Reno breast cancer charity and to buy T-shirts he's selling on his Nuggs for Carter website, with all money going to the DTFA. He also tells the Times it will be "pretty cool" to note his record on college applications. (Self-ordering kiosks are coming.)

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