It started with one senior citizen, two dogs, a few Twitter followers and a dream.

Terry Shipman, of Beaumont, Texas, tweeted a selfie with his two pet pooches on Tuesday night, along with the lofty goal of trying to get more retweets than Ellen DeGeneres now infamous star-studded selfie at the Oscars.

Let's see if we can beat the Oscar re-tweets! pic.twitter.com/hke2BbcUJb

- Terry Shipman (@terry_shipman) March 4, 2014

As of this morning, Shipman's photo has more than 43,000 retweets - not too shabby for a guy who has only ever tweeted six times.

While he's still a long way from topping DeGeneres' record of 3.3 million retweets and counting, Shipman has been winning hearts along the way.

I love you @terry_shipman. It might take longer but we're gonna make your dream come true.

- christine teigen (@chrissyteigen) March 5, 2014

I don't know this man, but I love and support him. RT @terry_shipman: Let's see if we can beat the Oscar re-tweets! pic.twitter.com/hA9PffxJvB

- David Steven Cohen (@CohenDS) March 5, 2014

And of course, here's Ellen's group selfie with Hollywood A-listers that started the whole thing. In less than an hour, DeGeneres' photo was already up to 871,000 retweets, with 210,000 favorites. She easily surpassed the previous record holder, President Barack Obama, with his election night victory photo of him hugging wife Michelle Obama, which was retweeted 777,000 times.

If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap

- Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014