Just before 2 p.m. ET on Tuesday, college football writer Ryan Nanni tweeted that he had always dreamed of being the guy in the bloomin onion costume at the Outback Bowl. Less than five hours later, he had apparently turned his dream into reality thanks to the wonders of Twitter.
Nanni, who co-manages the SB Nation site Every Day Should Be Saturday, said his Bloomin Onion dreams began as a joke during an episode of SBNation’s college football podcast The Shutdown Fullcast, but became more serious as the game approached. With no obvious way of convincing Outback to hire him a mascot, he did the only thing he could do: offering up retweets, Wendy’s-kid style.
For the better part of a year, I’ve been telling y’all I want to be Bloomin Onion Man at the Outback Bowl. At first, it was just a fun goof for the Fullcast and such.
— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) December 5, 2017
But now that we’re getting closer to the game itself…I like REALLY want to do this. So I’m going to try a bit of a Hail Mary (sports term) here, shameless social media style.
— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) December 5, 2017
Ok, @Outback. How many retweets is it going to take for you to let me fulfill my destiny and become Bloomin Onion Man?
— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) December 5, 2017
Outback responded within 15 minutes, asking for a fairly modest 10,000 retweets.
Those are Bloomin' big shoes to fill. 10,000 retweets! #FryinNanni
— Outback Steakhouse (@Outback) December 5, 2017
Nanni’s RT total grew rapidly over the next few hours, and by 7 p.m., he had reached his goal.
MISSION BLOOMCOMPLISHED pic.twitter.com/ksoZLMHvUU
— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) December 5, 2017
Y’all are awesome. I promise to wear that big beautiful onion with pride and honor.
— Ryan Nanni (@celebrityhottub) December 5, 2017
Outback, to its credit, seems serious about rewarding Nanni for his Twitter efforts (and the free advertising all those retweets provided), asking him to DM them his measurements.
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
And just like that, Nanni’s bizarre dream appears set to be fulfilled, and Outback no longer has to fret finding an intern to run around a stadium in an onion costume. Rarely does Twitter provide us with feel-good happy endings, but folks, we seem to have one here.
