Carter's chicken nugget odyssey ends as hungry Wendy's fan beats Twitter retweet world record

Teenager Carter Wilkerson's Twitter plea for a year's supply of chicken nuggets has become the most retweeted tweet in the history of the social media platform. It broke the record set by Ellen DeGeneres' Oscars selfie in 2014.

To mark the tweet in question hitting the milestone, US restaurant chain Wendy's announced that it had donated $100,000 (£77,317) to the Dave Thomas Foundation for Adoption (DFTA), a charity devoted to finding homes for children in foster care.

Of course, fans wanted to know if Carter is also set to get his nuggets. "He gets them nuggs," the account said in response to an inquisitive user.

Carter, a 16-year-old from Reno, Nevada, tweeted Wendy's on 5 April asking how many retweets he'd need to received a year's worth of free chicken nuggets. The restaurant chain replied with a target of 18 million, to which Carter boldly replied: "Consider it done".

The teen then shared a screengrab of the conversation and shared it in another tweet, saying: "HELP ME PLEASE. A MAN NEEDS HIS NUGGS."

This is the tweet that quickly went viral, landing Carter a spot on US talk show host Ellen DeGeneres' chat show (video embedded below) after the comedian started a tongue-in-cheek feud.

DeGeneres tweeted the previous record holder during her role hosting the 2014 Academy Awards. During the show, she took a selfie with actors include Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Bradley Cooper, Kevin Spacey, Jared Leto, Julia Roberts and Lupita Nyong'o.

The tweet very quickly become the most retweeted in history, but now the torch has been passed.

Of course, the virality of the tweet provided a ton of attention and free marketing for Wendy's, not to mention other brands and companies that decided to hop on the bandwagon. While Carter didn't hit the 18 million target (and probably won't) the world record and copious advertising was enough for Wendy's to grant his wish.

Whether you find the whole story annoying or not, the amount of money donated to charity is undoubtedly great to see, and caps the story off nicely.