Everyone makes jokes about things that are not in their bingo cards for the year, and for all of us, the bingo card did not have fast-food CEOs going on TikTok to take videos of themselves eating their “products.” Not their food, but their products.
It’s been a week of people mocking and generating memes about the McDonald’s CEO for deciding to make a promotional video for the new Golden Arch sandwich. He awkwardly was on social media taking what was considered by most as a pitifully small bite and being overwhelmed by what he thought was the size of the burger that had sesame seeds—something he was shocked at the inventiveness of.
The CEO in question is Chris Kempczinski, who has run McDonald’s since 2019. The promotional clip that circulated online quickly drew ridicule across TikTok and other platforms, with viewers pointing out how awkward the moment felt.
The bite itself became the focus of thousands of reactions, memes, and stitched videos, with people questioning whether the CEO actually eats the company’s food regularly. Instead of creating excitement around the sandwich, the clip seemed to spark a wave of parody content that spread across social media for days. But he loved those crispy onions..
A separate video of him eating a chicken sandwich has people joking that he was actually putting the napkin up to his mouth in order to spit it out.
After the video was widely mocked, Burger King, Wendy’s, and Taco Bell—and everyone else in between—went online to do similar videos but, because of the other response, took larger bites of the product.
And that was the week. That was a week of social media, at least. People making mixes of the video, songs about the video, re-videoing the video, commenting on the video, all at the expense of the McDonald’s CEO.
Listen, anyone who follows conspiracy theories will know one of the most common conspiracy theories that has been active online recently is this thought—albeit gross—that fast-food joints don’t have enough cows to use in their products and are getting medical waste and other forms of ingredients that are less than edible.
It all seems silly and far-fetched until, of course, you see the CEO slam his teeth into a very small portion of a product that he won’t call food and promote that on social media.
Bad buzz. Bad advertising. Strange blowback.
That’s your week in socials.
