The US teen tweeting for free chicken nuggets and social media fame

Carter Wilkerson isn't exactly a household name, but he's about to have the most retweeted post ever.

The 16-year-old from Nevada targeted fast food chain Wendy's asking how many retweets he'd need for a year's supply of chicken nuggets.

Bosses replied saying 18 million. And although he might not be there just yet (he has three million), he's about to beat Ellen DeGeneres on retweets.

He told Newsbeat: "It's super fun to see this happen so quickly."

Carter has created the hashtag #NuggsforCarter in his quest for chicken nugget domination and has even started his own line of nugget-themed merchandise.

He says he tweeted his favourite fast food restaurant as a joke after being inspired by similar "how many retweet" questions on Twitter.

Carter's tweet is 100,000 retweets away from beating Ellen's Oscars Selfie.

Carter says he couldn't believe the response.

"It was really a joke to tweet Wendy's and when they replied I thought it would be funny to go for it, even though getting 18 million retweets is impossible," he's told Newsbeat.

"I'm kind of putting that out of reach now as the retweets have slowed down.

"Maybe I'll get a year of free chicken nuggets when I'm 60."

Carter is doing all this... for some of these

The tweet from three weeks ago is about to overtake Ellen DeGeneres' selfie from the 2014 Oscars and needs just over 100,000 more retweets.

Carter appeared on The Ellen Show last week and challenged her followers to keep retweeting her selfie to keep her world record for most retweeted tweet.

"Ellen is pretty angry, she's trying to bribe me with a TV and a year of Ellen underwear to not surpass her tweet."

Ellen's Oscars selfie is just about holding on to the top spot.

Carter says he's loved nuggets from a very early age and always has them after athletics practice at high school.

"All my friends wanted to grow up to be astronauts, firefighters, policemen or doctors.

"Me, I've always aspired to be a chicken nugget."

Carter has got international backing from the likes of Microsoft and Google and celebrity tweeters Aaron Paul and Martha Hunt have even got involved.

The teen now hopes to use his fame for good and has got Wendy's to pledge $100,000 (£77,850) to an adoption charity when he breaks the record.

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