McDonald's

The real interest of America: A Big Mac and fries

Mind your own Business

"You're fired!"

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The McDonald's Corporation is the world's most notorious supplier of hamburgers, although it actually makes more of its profits from real estate. It was founded in its modern corporation form by a multimixer salesman named Ray Kroc, who bought the name from the McDonald brothers. The corporation has generated much controversy over charges including providing unhealthy food, cutting down rainforests, serving coffee too hot to be safe, and the McLibel case where several people were caught up in a legal battle with the giant Goliath McDonald's over pamphlets provided by London Greenpeace (at the time it did not have an affiliation with the larger Greenpeace organization) and only two of them didn't surrender: Helen Steel and David (surprise?) Morris.

Health concerns

Obesity

Critics claim the fast food giant is the reason why so many Americans are obese, including children and adolescents. However, the corporation claims they are going in the right directions. This includes putting apples in Happy Meals and not marketing hamburgers and fries directly to children, selling milk and juice as an alternative to soda and milkshakes, eliminating trans fats from French fries, and selling salads to adults. Despite these new innovations, critics still claim that McDonald's is a greaseball since hamburgers and fries are still the heavyweights. They also push sugary soft drinks and milkshakes to wash their food down with; this only adds to the total calorie load of a typical meal.

Still, it might be the case that McDonalds is getting unfairly picked on here, being targeted simply due to being the most successful fast food chain and thus the face of the industry. Their food is not healthy, sure, but there are far worse fast food restaurants you can eat at. Your typical Five Guys burger is literally dripping with grease, for example, and a lot of American chain sit-down restaurants such as Cheesecake Factory offer much more monstrous dishes.

Mystery meat?

Over the years, there have been many urban legends about McDonald's supposedly using horse, dog, human, or whatever other kind of meat. You will sometimes see YouTube videos claiming to show that McDonald's meat is made of some kind of pink slime, but these videos are all faked. While their agricultural practices aren't without controversy, there's no evidence of them using any meat that's not supposed to be there.

Ball pits of doom!

McDonald's used to have play areas for the kids in many of their restaurant, and perhaps the most infamous part of them were the ball pits. These had all sorts of rumors about them, allegedly being filled with drug needles, venomous snakes, and many diseases. Of course, most of these claims are outright hoaxes; the disease thing is real but overblown, as there's no evidence that ballpits are really any more filthy than other things kids regularly come into contact with like bathrooms. Still, these claims are widely credited for causing McDonald's, and many other restaurants alongside them, to remove their ball pits.

How to piss off your employees and make yourself a laughingstock in the media

In 2013, as their American employees began making noises about wanting a living wage and better benefits, the brain trust at McD's corporate offices began issuing missives via their website to their employees telling them how to budget and spend their money.

• In July, they issued hints on how employees should budget their salary. Included were $600 for rent and $150 for car payments, but nothing for gas for the car or for food.
• In November, they issued tips on how to get extra money during the holidays, such as returning gifts for cash refunds and bring sack lunches.
• In December, two weeks after the November message and on the day that McD's employees in 100 cities picketed for higher wages, a message to employees was placed on the website telling them the proper way to tip au pairs, personal fitness trainers, dog walkers and pool cleaners.
• Then on 23 December came the ultimate sin — the website advised employees that junk food is bad for you.
• Realizing that they were no longer lovin' it, headquarters pulled the plug on the entire site on Christmas day. Ho ho ho!

Many McD's employees in the US are on public assistance, basically meaning that the federal government is subsidizing McDonald's profits. Many also work two or three jobs to survive. Others rely on parents or siblings for help. Some have even stated that they can't afford to eat at McD's on their McD's salary.

Dragging an old lady through the dirt

See the main article on this topic: Liebeck v. McDonald's Restaurants

Geopolitics

McDonald's is not universally popular outside the United States.

McDonald's is often considered a symbol of capitalism and globalization due to how it spread across the world, and it is thus of interest to many economicists and political scientists. It has gotten so big to the point that McDonald's has even been involved in a few international conflicts.

Golden Arches Theory of Conflict Prevention

In 1996, Thomas Friedman famously made the claim that "no two countries that both have a McDonald's have ever fought a war against each other", trying to suggest that a new age of global capitalism would lead to global peace. Of course, as with similar ideas such as the End of History, this turned out to be pretty naïve, as multiple wars have broken out since between countries with McDonald's, such as the NATO bombing of Serbia, the 2006 Israel-Lebanon War, the 2008 Russia-Georgia War, and the 2014 invasion of Crimea and subsequent Russian-Ukrainian War. Even when he posited it, the claim wasn't true as the U.S. has invaded Panama in 1989, at which point it had already had a McDonald's.

Closure in Russia

Is this place to be closed too? It's at Guantanamo Bay.

In March 8, 2022, McDonald's announced on Twitter that they would shut down Russian operations in response to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This led to their former Russian franchises retooling their stores and offering localised versions of their former franchise holder's menu, namely Uncle Vanya and Vkusno i tochka (Вкусно — и точка).

Complicit in Gaza genocide?

With the outbreak of Israel's 2023 invasion of Gaza, many franchises in Israel have been supportive of Israel's actions, with McDonald's Israel giving out over 100,000 free meals to IDF soldiers according to their social media posts. This, alongside the fact that a Malaysian branch of McDonald's (which is actually owned by a Saudi company) tried to sue the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement for defamation, led to BDS advocating a worldwide boycott of McDonald's. The main issue is that McDonald's runs on a franchise model, and cedes some control to local businesses when it expands into foreign markets. Many Middle Eastern franchises have criticised the Israeli franchise's actions and some have even donated to Gaza aid organizations, but the damage in the eyes of the public has still been done, and McDonald's chief executive Chris Kempczinski has even acknowledged that boycotts (especially in the Middle East) have directly hurt their business, and the backlash led McDonald's to buy all of their Israel restaurants from the previous franchise owner. This is not actually the first time such a thing has happened; McDonald's was heavily criticized by Armenian groups in 2020 after a franchise in Azerbaijan posted pro-Azeri propaganda about the Nagorno-Karabakh War.

See also

• Drudge Report
• Wal-Mart
• Fast food
• McLibel trial
• George Ritzer — created the concept of McDonaldization
• Soylent Green
• Super Size Me