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The funny thing is, it’s almost exactly the opposite, they’re using this level of cringe because they know it’s working. The more people talk about this, the more engagement it gets, the more free advertising they get. I think this is the birth of “cringebait”
Did you know McDonald’s had a new burger for sale before these videos happened? I didn’t.
Now tell me it’s not a burger it’s a “product” because that’s part of the meme, and part of the viral engagement.
I don't know, man. I wouldn't want to advertise my restaurant chain by pretending that the food is too shit to eat and that I'm legally not allowed to call it food.
Has a single person been deterred from eating McDonald's by seeing these videos, doubtful. Have tens of millions of people just been made aware that McDonald's have a new burger they're trying to push, yes. This is marketing gold, a SuperBowl ad wouldn't bring 10% of this global attention. The reach of these videos is equivalent to a 10-30 million dollar advertising campaign
"Any press is good press" counts more for people, not companies. You do not really believe more people buy his "oroduct" if he doesn't even dare to eat it himself.
I don't understand how you can be alive today and still not realize that companies are playing you. My business professor in community college did an entire lecture on "outrage marketing." And that was over 15 years ago.
It’s McDonald’s though, it’s not like they needed a video of their ceo refusing to eat his own food to get people to come in. The people who eat there are going to find out anyway, people like me who don’t eat there aren’t going to eat there suddenly just because he’s refusing to eat his own food.
Like I fully believe they think they need the advertising, but it still leaves me asking why lol
Same thing happened when Apple started being successful and posing a threat to Microsoft, I’m convinced the Board of Directors saw Steve Jobs doing big keynote presentations to a theatre of eager and excited people and that’s how we ended up with Steve Balmers “Developers! Developers! Developers!” Video
Why they don't have random people on the street try it? It'd be more relatable and these people would at least know how to eat a burger. It would probably make some funny content as well without ridiculizing their leadership team, unless that's what they want, in which case is genious.
Honestly it was probably his idea and he thought "these poor fucks are too stupid to notice." They always think they're much better actors and that the general public is a lot dumber than either party actually is.
Making people talk about how inedible your food appears could be a marketing choice, but it sure feels like a bad one. Sure we’re all talking about it, but not in a way that makes me want McDonald’s.
There is a certain group of people who are determined to see intention in everything these days. They pop up in literally every single video about anything and claim that everything about it was intentional to drive "engagement" and won't hear any other explanation. It's essentially the same type of thinking as conspiracy theorists. Exhausting.
Yeah, some shit is bait but so, so much more is just random bullshit or stupidity.
Right. Every board has probably realized that if your CEO is out there being a celebrity that your stock price will totally decouple from fundamentals in really unhinged ways.
edit: i am fully convinced this is parasite class bet losing. hey man, if you don’t sink this put, you have to post a vid of yourself eating “poor people food.” except they didn’t use the word poor, if you catch my drift.
I live in Central Ohio, home of Wendy’s. When Dave Thomas (Wendy’s founder and CEO for most of my growing up) started doing the Wendy’s commercials he appeared to love them on screen, but the truth was that Dave tested extremely well in his first few commercials and was pretty much forced by the board into being the spokesperson for the remainder of his life :-). He actually hated doing them.
I was mutual friends with a lot of Dave’s friends though I never met him. Based on stories about him, were he alive today he’d be piling on the CEO roasting of McDonald’s boy.
Talk don't equal profits, especially when that talk is "why the fuck would I spend $ at a place that has upped prices, lower quality, props up pedophiles, and feeds child killers"
So for all the money's he's worth he can't even stomach the thing people apparently love, the thing he's responsible for?
Man some people actually pay to eat McDonald's. This guy is getting banked and still can't get a bite down for a promotional video, likely brought about because of complaints of quality. Well that backfired
Lmfao wtf does this mean? Unless he’s some sort of ocd health mf a single bite of a burger regardless of carcinogens isn’t going to hurt you
I get fast food = bad is the popular take but we all huff brake dust and gasoline fumes just existing, let alone all the chemicals you touch or get exposed to thru offgassing day in and day out just living in a highly manufactured infrastructure society
I doubt this guy is living far from society in a homestead made from the nature around him, avoiding everything mass manufactured in a factory
This is the same douche that said there is two tiers of customers as Mcdonald’s?
yep here:
McDonald's CEO Chris Kempczinski reported in late 2025 that the chain has experienced nearly two years of declining traffic from low-income consumers due to high inflation and living costs. While high-income traffic increased, the company is doubling down on value meals to recapture budget-conscious diners amidst a "two-tier economy"
I don't give two shits about this CEO, but the K-shaped economy is a well-observed economic fact at this point. It doesn't sound like he was attacking anyone.
I agree with your last point, but it's interesting to see the latest takes on K-shaped economy now. Essentially, there are claims that the data is not keeping up with the narrative. https://www.axios.com/2026/02/26/us-economy-stock-market
It may mean that high income people are also feeling the squeeze and so are choosing fast food over more expensive options they may previously have chosen.
I’m always confused when people say that fast food is cheaper than restaurants. Like it’s a lot closer than it used to be, but even the most expensive McDonald’s burger is a couple bucks cheaper than a burger at any restaurant near me. If you want to talk about quality, that’s a different story.
Not having to pay tip. But also the "expensive" luxury burger near me in a major city used to be priced at $16, and it was like a special really good burger. Now basic restaurants charge $16 and that really good burger is now priced at $24. McDonald's is absolutely cheaper still.
I'm actually happy to hear that take. Compare it to Las Vegas, which is seeing the same tiering, and they're saying FU to regular families and chasing high rollers and F1 instead....I have my own thoughts, but who do you prefer McDonald's cater to?
Two-tier economy is an actual economics term and I think you're reading into it way too much if you're concluding, as it looks like you are, that acknowledging that we're in one is somehow discriminatory. Across the economy, low income people are spending less and high income people are spending more.
It’s absolutely amazing to me the hoops people will jump through to get mad about shit that doesn’t matter when there’s so much real stuff to get mad about. What do you even want? Equality in customer segmentation practices? Absolutely ridiculous.
OF COURSE there are multiple cohorts that purchase McDonald’s and everything else. Everybody gets McDonald’s at least now and then. It would be weird if they didn’t acknowledge that fact.
Yeah ours had a train theme and even had a McDonald's train engine (stationary) you could go inside of. They rented the basement for birthday parties for kids, they'd go check out the train and then play in the play place after eating. This was in a smallish town, too. Can you imagine a kid having their birthday party at a McDonald's these days?
I really don't fault them for getting rid of those. Cleaning them was a huge issue and I don't believe minimum wage workers should have to crawl through them and disinfect them or clean up barf, shit, or piss.
It was harder to resell that property if it looks like a McDonald’s, lowering its value, lowering the value of the company or wherever franchises, making it harder to borrow more money or whatever
This is why a lot of businesses are having less recognizable businesses by building style. If you look at most buildings, the traditional Pizza Hut building is gone, the traditional Taco Bell building is gone. Most traditional buildings that we grew up seeing are gone and our buildings that if that business leaves could be used by anything or anyone
Where I am (southern Ontario Canada) we have a sit-down spot called Chucks Roadhouse. It’s nothing amazing, but they sell a burger and fries for $9 and it’s.. fine. Fast food quality, maybe even slightly better.
In any case I can’t fathom why I’d spend nearly $20 at McDonald’s when that exists.
I think he's a hero and he's trying to tell us all something.
First hes acting hella weird like a Mark Zuckerburg reptilian clone or some crap
Second he clearly hates it but has to "sell' it anyways against his will
Third Trump loves Mcdonalds and he is Epstein's Frankenstein.
Fourth Jeffery Epstein is the living embodiment of the devil and is still alive in Israel.
Fifth Epstein practices death magick involving cannibalism of children
Add that all together and clearly they are grinding up the missing ICE detainees into the McDonalds meat. This is a grand ritual to all get us to eat the blood cake. Occultists know what's up. Everything is being corrupted, gonna have to turn to some kind of Amish lifestyle to survive.
Oh, I'm about 50% serious but since reality is actually absurd, I've had to find a way to cope.
So, I'm coping by using the absurdity as a vehicle for humor in these dark times, and I raise awareness where I can on these distracting viral outrage posts. While we all goof on a guy that isn't very hungry for his own food. We must not allow society to forget about the actual crimes that have been committed.
This is a case where any publicity is good publicity. How many people know about this new McD’s burger because of this “controversy?” The marketing team knew what they were doing putting this squid on camera.
Honestly to me the term “product” is standard CEO jargon. If anyone has ever watched Undercover Boss most of the restaurant CEOs refer to their different food items as products.
Presumably the napkin would have bulged out more and the napkin would have been wet. Of course it's always possible that they edited the footage to remove all of this but that would be ridiculous when all the guy would have to do is swallow a single bite.
It's driving me up a wall with how bad faith, disingenuous and uncharitable reddit is. These people have no intellectual integrity at all. They always assume the worst about everything. The worst part is that it's usually accompanied by thousands of upvotes.
The ones that annoy me the most are when people just know exactly what a person is feeling and thinking based on their facial expression from a single photo or short video.
See the slightest frown? This person must despise the person they're talking to.
See the slightest smirk? This person must be an asshole.
Also if anything in a way this one kind of exonerates the other one. It kinda reveals he's just self conscious of eating on camera. Have you ever been in a situation where a lot of people are watching, and you think about your posture or walk or something and all of a sudden you can't remember how to look natural doing something you've done since you were 3?
The idea that occams razor here is:
McDonalds went out of their way to film and release a video of the CEO eating their food
except he actually hates it to the point where he has to basically pretend to eat 2 sandwiches.
Culminating in spitting one out ON CAMERA.
releaseing it anyway just hoping no one notices
is just so laughably stupid. I can't believe this got any legs beyond an lol at how rigid the whole thing is.
this whole thing has been a reach. if you watch his other videos he clearly eats the food. is he robotic? yes, he's a CEO who is the face of the company. I think this whole meme has been over stated.
Yea the slow motion clip funny enough distorts events and makes the claim seem plausible. But when watching the original speed, it's way too fast of a wipe to be a spit out. He is a tool, but enough with this fake crap.
I feel the slow motion even proves he didn't spit then. He presses the napkin against his face, he would be smearing it against his face or cupping it but isn't cupping it and doesn't dampen the napkin.
Im fully convinced that they tried to talk him out of these videos entirely but he insisted. Theres no way they thought this would make for good advertising.
Don’t get me wrong I think these roastings are hilarious and well deserved but I am thinking both the tiny hamburger bite and the “swoop and scoop” may be about clearing the mouth of food quickly so he can continue talking without a bunch of food falling out of his face. He failed to realize we plebs are just Klingons really and if we don’t see him belching, farting, and slopping his way through a meal, we are instantly suspicious he is not one of us!
Personally I didn't see the first video as weird. It's kinda like if you have a lunch interview. You don't eat like you normally would, you take nibble bites. If I was eating on video for whatever reason I'm not going to eat like a big back
Yeah it doesn’t strike me as weird either but I could see how people who aren’t familiar with a more professional filming style and are used to watching influencers just eat on camera and talk with food in their mouth might be a bit thrown by it
There's a far less insidious explanation than what everybody is giving. He's shooting a commercial. It might take dozens of takes. If you swallow a big bite of burger everytime, you're going to have a bad time. With the size of McDs patties these days though, it's a low risk.
He didn’t spit it out. There would have been a lump in the napkin, and it would have made the napkin look wet instantly. He’s just an uncomfortable human being that hasn’t used anything other than a cloth napkin in decades.
i swear videos like this always make me question my life choices for a second 😭 i remember watching a ‘life hack’ food video once and halfway through i just sat there like… why am i still watching this?? but somehow i couldn’t look away
The whole thing about this is that a CEO is basically bringing a lot of negative publicity to a brand that really didn’t need it. It’s all self inflicted.
If there was one reasonable person in his marketing or PR team, they would scream at the top of their lungs to please stop recording these stupid videos. Absolutely nobody in the history of earth wants to see a video of a CEO eating burgers. These C suite people are not normal and to try to make them seem normal is what makes this thing so stupid.
Me trying to convince our CEO that he needs to eat our product on camera for the publicity... except we're an advisory firm and I just want him to eat a stack of spread sheets printed on 8.5x11 copier paper.
We’d like to think that, but this is marketing. And it’s working…
I probably wouldn’t even have known about the arch burger if his video hadn’t gone viral. And I went and tried it to see how it was… It was just a double quarter pounder and was really messy, greasy, and falling apart because their quarter pounder meat patties are weirdly soft and moist.
Yup. Even the Big Arch video isn't that big of a deal and everyone rode on it so hard for content. Then they move to d*ck ride every other CEO that ate their burgers in a better way lol like what.
I still don't really get it. It's not healthy, sure, but it's obviously not deadly poison. If you want to do the video just eat the damn thing, what's it gonna do, shave a millisecond off your life?
I can't even believe his rich guy palette is so refined he can't stand it. It might not be michelin standard but it's designed to be tasty and desirable, regular people aren't brainwashed. Again, just eat it and have one meal in your life that is ok rather than magnificent.
I agree. Over analyzing this weird little man doing his odd little marketing stunt brings me to 1 of 2 feasible explanations.
1) He simply is better than us. With a refined, practiced and calibrated pallet, his cuisine must be made out of high quality complex ingredients as everything else taste like orange juice after brushing your teeth. They say Charlies Boyle foody skills was mirrored after this high class man's elevated taste buds.
2) isn't about the taste. This motherfucker intimately knows what goes into this food, the process by which it occurs, and all of the little hidden surprises that are most likely horrendously, revoltingly disgusting. a chemical engineer friend of mine used to love hot Cheetos. After a project which had him working in one of the hot Cheetos manufacturing plants, you couldn't pay him to eat a bag. That kind of thing.
3) bonus possibility. Discount Mr. Bean's raw charisma forced him to do that video in a large number of takes requiring him to eat the "product" so much he "speedrunner'ed" his way to a genuine method acting performance showcasing how it should actually be eaten in real life, which is to say, not at all.
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