bacon, and cheese, the company’s bizarro promotions have included the invention of an edible chicken-flavored nail polish (it is “Finger Lickin’ Good” after all), a chicken-scented firelog, and “Extra Crispy” sunscreen (all of which sold out in hours), and the mostly unexplained, high-profile blasting of a KFC sandwich to the edge of space in a high-altitude balloon. The company also produced low-smell packaging for self-conscious commuters in Japan and, in 2018, promised to give $11,000 to the first baby born on the Colonel’s birthday. All the parents had to do was name their newborn baby Harland. (Not surprisingly, this gambit worked.) Many believed Burger King when, just before April Fools’ Day 2017, the company announced it would release Whopper-flavored toothpaste.
After the popular dimension-bending Adult Swim cartoon series Rick and Morty repeatedly referenced Szechuan sauce, the nineties-era McNugget dip that lived briefly as a (geographically dubious) promo for the Disney movie Mulan, McDonald’s was bombarded with online petitions and social media demands by the show’s fans to bring the sauce back. In what was meant to be a shrewd publicity stunt, the company acquiesced with a special-edition run, but unfortunately, when stores hadn’t carried nearly enough packets to meet the hours-long lines and unexpected hordes, customer riots led by chants of “We want sauce!” ensued. “We did not anticipate the overnight crowds, the cross-state travel and the amazing curiosity, passion and energy fans showed,” McDonald’s wrote in a ridiculous apology. “Our super-limited batch, though well-intentioned, clearly wasn’t near enough to meet that demand. We disappointed fans and we are sorry.” To make amends, the company produced and shipped 20 million packets of Szechuan sauce out to its stores a few months later. (In the interim, fans sold packets online for several hundred dollars.)
Carter’s quest for nuggs and the great Szechuan Sauce Riots of 2017, along with these other bits of bottled social lighting, reveal how online modern wildfire spreads and digital mobs form, even in the commercial space. When everyone is vying for a connection and suffering from a perpetual and deathly case of FOMO, there will always be inventive and sinister ways for businesses to cash in. This dynamic isn’t limited to fast food. The giddy fervor that greets the gimmicky arrival of high-end Cronuts, rainbow-colored bagels, heart-shaped pizzas, Starbucks Unicorn Frappucchinos, and pumpkin-spiced everythings are the instant-gratification versions of the trend toward picturesque food and restaurant set pieces—with twee cartoon menus and packaging, selfie-friendly low lighting, and decadent-looking dishes. Menus increasingly tilt toward items designed to be shared on the internet. Every meal gets consumed in a thousand ways by a thousand people, whether it’s a $60 heritage-breed roast chicken for two or a six-piece box of nuggs for one lonely teen.
13 BELONGING
You don’t need to go to church to be a Christian. If you go to Taco Bell, that doesn’t make you a taco.
—JUSTIN BIEBER
In the emotional realm beyond the fickle and fleeting joys of social media, there lies a deeper, more gratifying range of feeling. As any cult or professional association can attest, a sense of belonging is a powerful sensation. And fast-food chains are some of the most skillful cultivators of this kind of collective loyalty out there. In 2012, for example, the Chicago Bulls had all but pulled away from the Orlando Magic in the fourth quarter of an early-season game. As the clock wound down to the final minute, the crowd at the United Center grew loud, but also urgent. They weren’t just cheering for the Bulls’ imminent win, they wanted, nay, they needed, their team to score again. With less than twenty seconds left, the Bulls had 99 points, and if they broke 100, everyone in attendance would win a free Big Mac as a part of an ongoing McDonald’s promotion.
As chants of “We want Big Macs, we want Big Macs!” rained down from the rafters, the Bulls’ star power forward Joakim Noah grabbed a stray rebound with seven seconds left and, instead of running out the clock, he pulled up from deep and took a long three-point shot, a shot that was well beyond his range. Not only did Noah miss (badly), but he was also summarily chewed out by his coach for taking a careless shot. “I just got caught up in the moment,” Noah said sheepishly after the game, “and I was trying to get the people a Big Mac. They really wanted a Big Mac and I felt like, not only did I take the shot and miss the