On April 5, 16-year-old Carter Wilkerson of Reno, Nevada, tweeted to Wendy’s official Twitter asking how many retweets it would take to earn him a year’s supply of free chicken nuggets. Wendy’s responded with “18 Million,” to which Wilkerson replied “Consider it done.”
The support Wilkerson has received since is remarkable. Besides being backed by countless Twitter users, many large companies like Microsoft, Apple, Hollister, LinkedIn and GameStop have supported him as well. At one point, Microsoft tweeted, “We’re in. How bout you @Amazon and @Google?” encouraging those companies to get involved, which they did.
The list of supporters doesn’t end there. Celebrities of all kinds – local, global and Internet – have been showing their support.
The best part is that Wendy’s isn’t the only one offering to give Wilkerson a reward for reaching his goal. A United Airlines representative has told Wilkerson that if his goal is met, they will fly him “to any Wendy’s in the world” for free. Mattress Firm has also added a sleep pack to the reward if the 18 million goal is met.
Before you say, “There’s no point to this,” or, “This is a waste of everyone’s time,” there’s something incredible to note. After many requests, Wilkerson has created the nuggsforcarter.com website so he can explain the story of how this happened and sell supportive T-shirts. The shirts are $20 each, and the proceeds will be donated to charity.
Primarily, he wants to donate to families with breast cancer patients and to Mom’s on the Run, a non-profit breast cancer awareness organization. Wilkerson explains on the website, that his mother was diagnosed with Stage III breast cancer years ago. Fortunately she survived, and he said he is greatly inspired by her strength.
Many of his supporters agree that “if you don’t ask, you don’t get” is the clear lesson here. However, this unusual situation can teach us that virtually anything is possible over the Internet. We can also take note on how Wilkerson was able to turn what initially was a joke fueled by his passion for chicken nuggets into huge Internet attention, which he has used for a good cause.
So far, Wilkerson has obtained 2.6 million retweets since April 5 (and that number is still increasing). If you haven’t gotten on board the #nuggsforcarter bandwagon, you still have time. I know I did.
