The Celebrity Fast-Food Meals Are Becoming A Scourge... Unless They Want To Give Me One

What do J. Balvin, Travis Scott, and Korean pop sensations BTS have in common (aside from me not having any clue who they were before typing their names just now)? All of them have been bestowed the high honor of a McDonald's signature meal.

Forget being knighted by the Queen; this is a real honor, and you don't have to let some geriatric monarch hold a sword inches from your jugular to get it.

McDonald's seems to have started a trend and now Burger King, the fast-food equivalent of the kid who always copies your homework, has started offering their own celebrity meals.

While these meals are meant to be nothing but a harmless publicity stunt, I submit for your approval that they reveal an underlying truth about the public at large: that fast-food corporations (correctly) think we're all total morons.

Let's first take a look at McD's J. Balvin meal. What the hell is a J. Balvin? I'm not sure either so let's learn together.

Per Wikipedia: 

José Álvaro Osorio Balvín, better known as J Balvin, is a Colombian singer, songwriter, rapper, record producer and actor.

Okay. Now that we've solved that mystery, let's see what Mr. J. Balvin allegedly orders when he goes to the Golden Arches.

• A Big Mac without pickles
• Fries with ketchup
• Oreo Mcflurry

Did I miss something here? What is particularly special about that? That's the same stuff you can order any day of the week. In fact, it's worse because the pickles are integral to a Big Mac being a Big Mac. Pickles are to a Big Mac what thymine is to human DNA (ATTN: Dennis Miller. You're welcome to use that joke). 

And why is ketchup even given a spot on the marquee? I assumed that everyone gets ketchup with their fries, but according to rapper and man with a name that is two first names, Travis Scott, that's where I'd be wrong.

Here is Mr. Travis Scott's meal; the one that started this whole celebrity meal craze:

• A Quarter Pounder with bacon
• Fries with barbeque sauce
• a medium sprite

You folks realize that if you ask the people at McDonald's they'll give you barbeque sauce, right? They won't even ask any questions or give you a stern warning about what you plan to do with it. You won't hear "Alright, I'll give you some barbeque sauce, but it better not fucking wind up on those fries." I promise you.

I bet if you even asked nice enough they'd throw some bacon on your run-of-the-mill Quarter Pounder. I'm failing to see the point of these meals.

Now, let's check in with BTS, a pop group so giant that I had no clue they existed. Here's their meal:

• Chicken McNuggets
• Medium Fries
• Medium Coke
• Sweet Chili and Cajun Dipping sauces

Alright, here we go. Something truly different: two new sauces. What do sweet chili and cajun sauces have anything to do with a Korean pop group? I have no goddamn clue, but at least they're offering something you can't get anywhere.

Aw, but wait. A 10-piece McNugget meal with fries and a Coke comes in at $6.49. The BTS meal? $10! Those two measly sauce packets pump up the price by nearly 30% (that was some impressive I just did, and if it's wrong, please don't correct me. Let me have this one).

Weirdly, this is what set me over the edge when it comes to everyone's obsession with celebrities.  Reality TV, celebrity endorsements of everything, the quest to be the King Shit of the Turd Mountain that is social media, and now this (which I get is a celebrity endorsement, but it's the first time one insults your intelligence so unapologetically), are ruining all of us.

I just wish that if McDonald's was going to do some celebrity meals they would at least have more fun with it. Like a Michael Moore meal, which would be a giant box of food, and when you get to the pickup window they'd yell "Here's your order, you corporate, fascist pig!" at you through a megaphone.

Or — since we're on the topic of documentarian-themed celebrity meals — how about McD's and Morgan Spurlock bury the hatchet. The sheer irony would be worth a few bucks.

But if there's anyone who deserves a celebrity meal, it's Don Gorske. 

Who is Don Gorske? WHO IS DON GORSKE?!?!?!

He's the man who has eaten over 30,000 Big Macs. He's the kind of guy McDonald's should be honoring. A man who is willingly giving himself a deposit of cholesterol plaque the size of a rolled-up tube sock in his left ventricle simply because he loves their product so much.

The second McDonald's starts offering the Don Gorske meal, there's zero chance I'd go get one (okay, maybe a slight chance), but I'd be happy for him because he's the kind of guy who should be honored with one. 

Not singers. Not rappers. Not Korean pop sensation BTSes-es-es. 

Alright. We've now come to the point of the dissertation where I must address my hypocritical nature because if the stars and Golden Arches aligned and I was offered a signature meal, I would take that opportunity and relentlessly implore everyone to buy it.

The Matt Reigle Meal would probably just be a regular double-cheeseburger, fries, and an unsweetened ice tea, but maybe we could put a copy of my book Quarter-Life Manifesto: Rants, Ramblings, And Lies From An Idiot’s First Twenty-Five Years of Mediocrity in each order. We'd also charge like $25 for it.

Ol' Mattski needs those book royalties.