It was a not-so-happy meal.

An enraged McDonald's customer says the fast food franchise is no longer affordable for ordinary Americans, calling the company's contemporary prices "crazy."

"So, I get there's a labor shortage, I get there's wage increases and a number of other things," Idaho man Christopher Olive began in a viral TikTok clip, which has recently resurfaced.

"But $16? $16 for a burger, a large fry and a drink? It's just crazy!" the flabbergasted content creator complained, panning to his itemized receipt from a McDonald's restaurant in the city of Post Falls.

The video was original posted on social media last December, but has now gone viral again after McDonald's recently reported an increase in revenue directly influenced by a "strategic" hike in menu prices.

In the comments section of of Olive's, viewers voiced their frustration with the price of the fast food.

"It's officially not convenient or affordable anymore," one moaned.

"Companies know they can get these prices now so they'll never go back," a second commiserated, saying the glory days of cheap fast food were over.

However, others left comments in defense of McDonald's, telling Olive he ordered a premium burger and could have secured a different meal for a lower price.

“Bro ordered the most expensive meal they have and acted surprised,” one defender declared.

"You sound like those boomers that complained about 5 dollar popcorn," another sniped.

However, Olive isn't the only one to go viral about the cost of McDonald's meals.

In March, a Connecticut content creator voiced his outrage for the $16.89 Big Mac combo meal at the fast food joint in a viral clip.

"Ya'll remember them stimulus checks they gave out? Thought you was getting away with that stimulus money huh?" he quipped. "They want it back."

And furious TikTokers aren't the only ones pressed about pricing. A viral Reddit thread asking, "what is no longer worth it because of how expensive it has become?" shed light on consumer's displeasure with fast food costs.

Redditors decried that the chain eateries have “gotten ridiculously expensive” as of late, with some users claiming that a McDonald's meal would run customers as much as a sit-down establishment.

Gone are the days where hungry patrons could snag a hearty breakfast of two Egg McMuffins for $3, recalled one person, or when the dollar menu was packed with items available for just $1.

Main Thread:

https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14x6fr3/35hour_and_still_broke/?sort=controversial

OP complains that they're broke making $70K a year. But some enterprising commenters delve into their post history, which demonstrates some very expensive gaming cabinets and consoles throughout OP's large apartment.

https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14x6fr3/35hour_and_still_broke/jrmd6h0/?sort=controversial

>I saw your post on your arcade room &….. Fricking heck…. You have money. Your entire place is massive with a ton of arcade stuffs that’s well beyond what the majority of Americans can afford…. This post smells like the one about the “self-made” woman who’s parents built her a $100,000 “tiny” home she could live in, paid for all her living expenses, made $60K a year working for her dad’s company, & only managed to save $7,500 for a downpayment on a 3% mortgage for a house. That’s pretty much OP in a nut shell it seems.

https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14x6fr3/35hour_and_still_broke/jrmttl9/?sort=controversial

>TBH I was on your side, as a g*mer myself… and I saw you defend your post history and I was like yea I respect that… then I looked… buying multiple arcade machines and having them in your house? Really?

https://old.reddit.com/r/antiwork/comments/14x6fr3/35hour_and_still_broke/jrmywyl/?sort=controversial

>The audacity and entitlement it took you to make this post while literally having an arcade in your apartment is fricking insane.

Full thread https://old.reddit.com/r/oddlyterrifying/comments/12dq7jg/this_ad_from_1996_was_prophetic/?sort=controversial

Naturally this is capitalism's fault

Raising prices and lowering wages is what boards and stockholders mean when they talk about innovation.

Shit, at my local diner a burger is $14, add $2 if you want lettuce tomato and onion, and fries are another $6. I'll take a $16 burger and fries any day.

A few people call out the r-slurred ad

Or they did the math, using historical inflation

I mean 12.5k is vastly indulgent for a vacation, and a basic car isn't 65k.

So... they calculated inflation?

Where does a basic car cost $65.000, and a vacation $12.500?

The rest is just various levels of poorcel cope and why it is society's fault they suck at life.

Video Link -

• Married at 22, divorcing at 23

• He can't stop spending, he doesn't help with the finances timestamp

• Why a divorce? timestamp

  • Went to therapy, decided they weren't compatible

  • Soy keeps talking about "trauma" while based wife talks facts and cold analysis

  • "He's a crier and I'm not"

  • "It happens so often that instead of consoling him I roll my eyes, here we go again"

    • She's perfect bros

• Wife wanted to come on the show

Finances:

• Three bedroom house with a roommate

  • Will continue living together post-divorce, different rooms

  • "What about dating other people won't it get awkward and stuff?" timestamp

    • "That... I'm probably not gonna get into that until later until I actually get out of therapy personally"

  • Just moved into that house, decided to divorce slightly after the move

  • a year left on the lease

• "He could probably burst into tears at any moment" timestamp

• Scores

  • She says 0/10, he thinks 3/10

• He's cut off his mother because she's "narcissistic" timestamp

• Spending

  • Tiktok marketplace timestamp

• Card 1 ($6969) timestamp

  • 410 minimum payment

  • She didn't know about this card until after marriage

  • 171 interest, 250 in new purchases

  • lot of useless shit on here

• Card 2 (3'233) timestamp

  • 3'200 limit

  • Over the limit at the time of the statement, made payments since?

  • "After I gave him my emergency fund to buy his new car I then had to go fix my car which was $2'500"

    • Stick insect freak didn't have an emergency fund of his own

  • Had to replace the "arms" on all four of her tires

  • Gym membership that neither doesn't uses

  • Gollum takes pot shots at her from behind Caleb during this segment, little freak sitting there all smug

• New Car (16'207) timestamp

  • 6ish percent interest

  • $326 minimum payment

  • 2022 Chevy Spark

  • The Freak tries to explain his financial reasoning and upbringing, I don't understand it because he doesn't understand it. It's a inhuman thing trying to masquerade as one of us.

  • His father cosigned for it

• She has a Chevy Trailblazer 2006, no debt on it

  • 230k miles?

  • [Midge tries to gloat calling the van a shitheap] "He thinks he knows a lot about cars"

• She nearly beaned him with a box when he started questioning if she really loved him timestamp

  • He deserved it. NTA. This woman is a queen.

• Checking account deets timestamp

  • The creature tries to speak and is immediately slapped back into into reality

Some Loans

• 1200 - to family friend

  • Friend owns a furniture store, no minimum monthly

  • She wants to keep the bed but is open to selling it to him

• 800 - to father in law

  • His father in law, bills from old apartment?

• 5000 - to parents for wedding

  • This was a gift but she feels obligated to pay them back since they are divorcing so soon

• 1900 - financing an appliance

Spending Graph - timestamp

Careers:

• He's a front desk guy at a hospital timestamp

  • The dynamic here is really interesting, she's got a better idea of his income than he does

  • Just started full time, part time for the last year, 1400 then, around $16.00 an hour now?

• She also has the same desk job kind of thing, I assume paid the same?

• He is trying to start a graphics art design thing?

  • Both went to school for graphic design

What’s next, the bellhop?

The hot new pump and dump stock from Ryan Cohen is Bed Bath and Beyond (BBBY). It's gone from $4 to $25 a share in the past two weeks. He was the inspiration for the GME climb from $4->$400 two years ago. Unlike last time, he just filed a form showing his intent to sell (there's arguing back and forth what this form actually means, but the fact he's showing intent to sell within 90 days makes this unlikely to be a GME type deal). Just in time for WSB to have multiple all in posts. The stock is down 20% in after hours, going from $23 to $19, and was $26 for most of the day until the last 20 minutes of trading.

Threads/people to lookout for:

Gain porn - Not selling till $100 YOLO

UPDATE: 🐳💎 2M -> 5M -> 3.5M -> 4.3M (this one might be a fake post)

175k BBBY life savings yolo. This is every cent I have available. (down $40k)

Just added $45k in shares, dont give up BBBY

I'm back in BBBY with 100k 🚀🚀🚀

I'm in for 5200 shares @ $19. Having some watermelon for dinner tonight

This is honestly insane lmao. Her wackadoodle husband missed a point blank shot on a dog sheltering in their porch. Woman blames everyone but herself.

If you spend enough time around poor people, you stop thinking of this Dril tweet as satire & realize that it's pretty accurate. "Candles" is just a stand-in for a suite of astoundingly profligate behaviors. https://t.co/ZnY5482Kpf

— Bachman (@ElonBachman) January 22, 2024

Other highlights from the thread, cbf pulling up responses but I assume poors be mad:

Couple of times in life I've found myself holding the actual budget of a poor person (compiled more or less under duress, following a family intervention), & each time it's basically been the Dril tweet. Like the rank orders of the categories don't even make sense.

Real life anthropology of poors here

20% of income on salons, more spent on car than on rent, etc.

But also just pervasive high time preference. E.g. making minimum wage but buying a bottle of water on the way home from work.

Yes, this is one of the crazy juxtapositions of "poverty" in the US. You can meet poor people who spend more on entire categories than do people who own private jets.

Personal adornment is the common one.

Poors be shopping

This topic makes me realize that "time preference" is a misnomer, because the thing that poor people spend most extravagantly is time.

Three hours getting ready on a Saturday, entire days spent shopping for a hat, months each year watching TV

And he veers into race realism to close it off :

Big puzzle piece for me was hearing someone point out that below a certain cognitive ability, people don't have hobbies, that there are entire countries where nobody has hobbies in the classic sense

What's this have to do with poverty?

A hobby creates artificial structure to gamify some part of reality. It's the kind of shape rotation that you notice is not happening among the dull. There's no engagement with relations, with things as exemplars of classes.

Now imagine you're poor and it's Saturday...

If creating experiences is beyond your mental ability, your menu of options is just stimulus/response gradients: go to mall; buy the brand name hat; buy the flavorful snack; prettify body or car

These are the most complex things you can imagine, poverty just results emergently

This is why poverty often presents as a puzzling mix of profligacy and miserliness; luxury car lease and reusing Ziploc bags 100 times

It's not that they don't know things are expensive, it's that their only joy comes from passive consumption of rich stimulus

There's a lot more but I cbf doing the markdown (if you highlight replies I'll pin your comment). In conclusion: nerds rule, poors drool

Like how the top comment calls him out

Hi. My company has been doing system wide layoffs for about 6 months now. In hindsight I should have started applying from then but I didn't think it would continue. Low and behold I was finally on the chopping block today. They sent a meeting invitation around 6pm last night from someone I've never heard of with no company branding. I ignored it because I thought it was spam. Then I lose access to all systems this morning. I text my supervisor who tells me to email some other company alias. Their email states my position was eliminated effective immediately and i would receive a fedex package with a separation agreement and additional information. I just bought a car which took some of my savings, and tanked more savings into a big vacation I've been planning for years. I actually just paid for the flight yesterday afternoon. I'm absolutely, royally fricked. My mom has also been unemployed for the same reason since about June or so. I won't have any help from her and I'm absolutely terrified of losing everything.

Can anyone help with next steps? I live in Maryland. I'm a bit too shocked to think straight but I don't want to waste time. I'm really just trying not to cry at this point.

TLDR: Laid off from job, low savings, and panicking. Advice?

The layoff notice she got after skipping the meeting

A post from her 5 years ago:

110000k in student loans and a 70mile/day commute to work with no car - budget help wanted

Finally, her bird she posts a lot about.

For the main post:

Edit: Since it's been brought up, I am a THC user. I have slowed down considerably from how much I used to smoke, but I don't know that I can quit completely. Only cannabis or extremely heavy cardio provokes me to have any appetite, and if I don't smoke I can easily go 2 days before I get hungry.

Won't go to the doctor because

doctors don't help besides prescribing pills. Most medications would disqualify me from doing my job as a heavy equipment operator.

But of course...

Weed would also disqualify you & your still smoking that. Weed is your issue. Stop smoking Weed.

The financial side is also a problem, but he's not breaking the bank on weed. But others say he is:

You are unable to go to the doctor because of how broke you are. It is breaking the bank. if I vomited monthly then I’d go to the doctor. Daily is insane and the fact that you’re still unsure about going makes me question your mental health.

When asked if he smokes a ton of weed, the reply is

I wouldn't say a ton. Maybe a gram to one and a 1/2 grams a week of concentrate. I know dudes who do that much in one single dab.

Of course, someone points out that this amount as concentrates would make you a heavy user.

https://old.reddit.com/r/SubredditDrama/comments/1041san/a_dude_is_vomiting_daily_hes_reluctant_to_go_to/?sort=controversial

Zoe 32, San Antonio TX

Reddit thread - https://old.reddit.com/r/CalebHammer/comments/1bwjhrx/published_on_youtube_trailer_trash_woman_stealing/?sort=controversial

Career:

• "Fulfillment Operations" at Amazon

  • $20.75, 33-36 hours a week

  • Works overnights 12 night shifts? Only gets so many on shift rotations?

Life:

• Single parent, 5 kids

• Finished Associates Degree in Psych recently?

  • Doesn't think she wants to pursue it any more

• Thinking she would got for a "realtor degree" (license?)

• Was married to someone in military who wanted her to be a stay-at-home mother?

  • Already had a the first kid with another father before marrying this guy?

  • He is still in military?

  • Divorced 7 years ago or married 7 years ago and divorced more recently? I'm not certain on the timeline, finalized in 2019?

  • Gets 1'000 a month in child support

  • He is the father of her two eldest children? Might be two second-eldest? What? I'm so confused.

• Another son gets $370 a month sporadically

• Does not get support for the other two children

  • Father of her youngest has repeatedly evaded the authorities "he's a chameleon"

  • No mention of the second youngest?

• Ages

  • Daughter - 1 and a half

  • Son - 3

  • Daughter - 8

    • Divorce was 7 years ago

  • Daughter - 12

  • Daughter - 14

• Lives with her mother, disabled and on a walker so she can't help out much

  • Mother works for a few days at a family members towing company for cash?

  • Mother has had a bunch of surgeries? Recovering from a hernia in the chest? She doesn't want to watch the grandkids.

• Cat just had 5 kittens

• More deets about the dads timestamp

Finances:

• "Borrowing to pay off your last borrowing to pay off your last borrowing that you borrowed before your last paycheck timestamp

  • Has been doing this for two or three months now?

  • Rent went up, CoL went up?

• Checking Account starts timestamp

  • started with negative $23 in the account ended with positive $500 timestamp

  • Payday loan $1000 timestam

    • ahead of her tax return?

  • Payday loan 2 (900 initial 1500 in needful payments) timestamp

    • 159%

    • Doesn't remember which one this is

    • "I saw the APR afterwards and was like holy shit"

    • Got it online?

  • Might be more, I got distracted here

  • Car 2023 Mitsubishi Outlander timestamp

    • Owes $34'900, worth 22'000

    • $819 minimum, missed the last payment

    • No car insurance "can't afford [it]"

    • 16% APR

    • Fell for a free 2'500 down offer and believed the salesfilth when it said she would pay more for a used car

  • Collections lmao timestamp

  • Card 1 $479 timestamp

    • "I got those cards with the intention of not paying them back and now I'm being forced to pay them back"

  • Some of my friends help me out timestamp

    • "Because I work more they took my foodstamps away"

    • Trading cash for foodstamps. $100 becomes $180 in stamps. "Is that legal?" "No."

  • Surprise student loans segment at the end timestamp

Caleb seethes over McDonald's coffee - timestamp

Kino awkward dating prospects - timestamp

DoorDash has, for many people, become a substitute for frozen meals, despite being less convenient and radically more expensive. And a lot of frozen meals taste fine, plenty of chain restaurants are actually serving that.

— cai (@AnneNotation) March 17, 2024

The replies to this tweet, which puts the bar as low as possible (frozen foods), somehow receives gratuitous pushback. Examples:

https://twitter.com/trochele/status/1769811110511710669

One pot pie is 600 calories

https://twitter.com/alxcharlesdukes/status/1769518810271211879

Unless it's like Stouffer's or hungry man frozen dinners, McDonald's is much worse than any frozen option.

https://twitter.com/KnoxEndemic/status/1769733590164672606

This one is the funniest to me. Somehow this person is distressed by the prospect of taking a meal out of the freezer and into the microwave.

https://twitter.com/Sarahj1919/status/1769853056777134438

Normalize institutionalizing these people and whipping them in shape

A father-of-two travelled to Turkey and spent $106,000 to get limb-lengthening surgery to increase his height after deciding his legs were 'too short' for his body.

Brian Sanchez, 33, a mortgage broker who lives in Georgia with his wife, Nidia, 30, and their daughters, Kaisley, two, and Kairi, six, said he felt like his body was 'out of proportion' and he looked like 'like a huge thumb

Brian Sanchez, 33, a mortgage broker who lives in Georgia said he felt like his body was 'out of proportion' and he looked like 'like a huge thumb'. Pictured: Brian before (L) and after (R) the surgery

'It's going to be really nice just to be able to hug her and have her all the way down there on my chest instead of being almost eye level.

'One of the things that I'll enjoy the most is being able to work out again and put some weight on my legs and have my body look a little bit more how I want it to.'

Last January, Brian realised his legs didn't match his 'torso proportions'.

He said: 'I realised that my legs were always looking weird, and I didn't know what it was, until one day I was sitting next to my brother-in-law who is almost 6ft 6in, and I was actually a little taller than he was.

'I thought that was weird, because I knew he was taller than I am by a lot, and we stood up, and all of a sudden, I started looking and realised my legs were too short for my body.

I'm broad, have long arms, and I'm wide, but my short legs make me look different – I almost look like a huge thumb, like those thumb men from Spy Kids.'

After the realisation, Brian, who had never previously had cosmetic surgery, started to dislike his aesthetics and decided to research ways to make himself taller.

He said: 'I thought I can either find a new hobby, and give up lifting weights, or I can fix the issue.

Brian had his first operation in last December, which involved breaking his tibia and fibula, putting a rod inside the bones, and fastening it with screws

I'm not posting anymore of the article but it's worth reading if you care

now, some TheColi commentary

please someone make a westbrook marsey for the love of bardfinn

i think the caucs are fine with 6 foot but our brehs see it differently

Exposure to poor people reduces support for redistribution among the rich. https://t.co/axsjAmLMuL pic.twitter.com/4Y37ck7gSf

— Rolf Degen (@DegenRolf) April 19, 2024

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https://old.reddit.com/r/Landlord/comments/1c152sg/landlord_usca_should_i_install_sleeping_capsules/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Miami/comments/1c23u48/im_thinking_of_renting_one_of_these_somipods_for/?sort=controversial

https://old.reddit.com/r/Seattle/comments/1c1yiko/how_popular_are_japanese_style_capsules_for_long/?sort=controversial

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