One blogger’s deep-fried dreams are about to come true. Ryan Nanni of SB Nation had a personal dream come true on Tuesday. The writer, whose Twitter bio states “My only professional goal for 2017: to serve as the Bloomin Onion at the next Outback Bowl,” had exactly that happen after the chain steakhouse set a retweet goal for him that he easily surpassed.
The Outback Bowl is held each year in Tampa, Florida, and features its own mascot, the company’s signature Bloomin’ Onion. The Onion is a big deal for Outback, which uses a proprietary technology to make the deep-fried dish that’s so secretive you can’t film it at work. These onions are important, which is why the honor of being the plush mascot version of one on New Year’s Eve is a great honor.
Nanni knew that, but put on a yearlong campaign to become the mascot that culminated Tuesday night when he propositioned the company for the right to be the onion.
https://twitter.com/celebrityhottub/status/938119650528890880
Outback itself got back to him and set a number: 10,000 retweets. And the Internet quickly got to work.
Those are Bloomin' big shoes to fill. 10,000 retweets! #FryinNanni
— Outback Steakhouse (@Outback) December 5, 2017
As you can see from the above tweet, Nanni easily got to the 10k mark and everyone waited with bated breath to see if a social media manager for an Australian-themed steakhouse could be trusted.
We should’ve made that harder 😂 Send us a DM so we can get your measurements to the onion fryer. #thisishappening
— Outback Steakhouse (@Outback) December 5, 2017
Success! And there was much celebration.
Godspeed pic.twitter.com/xtp1P4TmlU
— Corbin Cupp (@cuppycup) December 5, 2017
You’ve seen the tweets, but even the normies on The Today Show took notice and featured the exchange.
https://twitter.com/karenehowell/status/938406054500683776
We truly live in amazing, deep-fried times.
