Given the wide coverage of how social media is being used to influence opinion and the well-publicized tweets from Donald Trump, the record-breaking tweet is relatively innocuous. The tweet comes from a teenager who boldly requested that the U.S. fast food chain Wendy’s give him a year’s supply of chicken nuggets.
The boy, called Carter Wilkerson aged 16, broke the record for the previous tweet (which was held by Ellen DeGeneres) when he passed 3,430,249 retweets on May 9, 2017. Carter sent his initial tweet on April, 5 2017, from his home in Reno, Nevada. The basis of the tweet was to Wendy’s asking how many retweets he would need to get a year’s free supply of chicken nuggets. This in itself shows the power of social media, with some companies keen to latch onto messages and photographs about their products. In exchange people can receive free products or even get paid for helping to raise brand awareness.
The response from Wendy’s was simple and to the point: “18 million.” This sparked the challenge and Carter attempted to hit this very high level. He undertook this by posting a screenshot of the tweets with the additional line (using capitals): “HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS.”
With a day, he’d received one million retweets. The retweets were not only from individual users but also from major companies, like Apple Music, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Twitter itself, plus the odd celebrity, such as Breaking Bad star Aaron Paul. This is a practice known as ‘brand-jacking‘.
Commenting on the social media attention the tweet received, A spokesperson for Wendy’s told the BBC: “We didn’t expect Carter’s response, and we couldn’t anticipate the overwhelming support he has received.” To mark the world Twitter tweet record being smashed, Wendy’s have donated $100,000 to charity.
