Kim James 
RICHMOND HEIGHTS, MO – APRIL 01: In this photo illustration, an ‘Impossible Whopper’ sits on a table at a Burger King restaurant on April 1, 2019 in Richmond Heights, Missouri. Burger King announced on Monday that it is testing out Impossible Whoppers, made with plant-based patties from Impossible Foods, in 59 locations in and around St. Louis area. (Photo Illustration by Michael Thomas/Getty Images)
Have you ever covered up for fast food and notion, “Gosh, wouldn’t or not? It’s awesome if I ought to order something that meditated my mood at this second in time?”
Me neither. But allow’s consider Burger King’s new advertising campaign for a moment before we push aside it as flame-grilled nonsense for hungry millennials. This week, the enterprise unveiled a new line of “Real Meals.” Available in choose markets, those “Real Meals” are essentially Whopper mixtures — burger, fries, and drink — that are available packing containers emblazoned with, um, a “kind of moods.”
It’s as if Nike marketed a new line of go-running shoes for the glum. Or Ikea released a unique-version Billy bookcase for self-hating hoarders and conflicted p.C. Rats. So allow’s say you end your new activity because your boss is a maniac, one of the scenarios in Burger King’s new #FeelYourWay advert. Well, now you may sidle up to the counter and inform the minimal-salary cashier you want the, ahem, “Pissed Meal.” Or perhaps you’re bored to death and defiant approximately classmates scrawling “skank” to your locker, some other scene within the advert. Well, in case you’re additionally feeling peckish, order the “DGAF Meal.”
Perhaps you’re stressed about your student mortgage or the chance of never transferring out. So fill your belly with the “Blue Meal.” Sick and uninterested in judgmental passersby providing you with aspect-eye because of your fame as a teenage mother? All you want is “Salty” or “YAAS” meals. All of that is more evidence the sector has long gone the wrong way up. I’m reluctant to char Burger King too severely today, in most cases, because the said purpose is noble. May is Mental Health Awareness Month. So Burger King is hoping to consume away at the stigma around intellectual fitness troubles, one Whopper at a time. It desires customers to comprehend it understands “no person is satisfied all of the time.”
But that’s now not searing perception — it’s a reasonably-priced shot at McDonald’s. And beyond this company trolling of a competitor’s “Happy Meal,” the messaging is also unluckily dubious. Burger King is now receiving kudos for this initiative. But do human beings now not recognize all we are genuinely handling here is PACKAGING? It’s nuts. Burger King is claiming 5 new menu objects designed to strengthen social focus while, in truth, all it’s doing is promoting antique-faculty Whopper combinations in exclusive containers this month.
“Real Meals” is the fake news of fast food. First of all, no matter which meal you order, what you get is precisely the same. There are no various ingredients or peripherals tailor-made on your “temper.” If you order the Pissed Meal, it does no longer come with a useful brochure on anger management. The Blue Meal is not laced with Prozac or wrapped with a 1-800 quantity to a suicide prevention hotline. The DGAF combo does not encompass sociological literature at the long-range benefits of really giving an eff.
So the most effective thing “Real Meals” does is remind you of how you’re feeling. And in case you’re gorging on speedy food, you’re probably now not feeling remarkable. If you’re “pissed,” cramming a burger down your throat whilst observing the phrase “pissed” is unlikely to make you sense any much less “pissed.” If something, you’ll experience more “pissed” because you are now stewing inside a gustatory remarks loop. And telling the humans at the subsequent desk you’re feeling “Salty” is a recipe for a false impression.
So this isn’t always approximately consumer moods. It’s approximately advertising and profit. If Burger King really wanted to improve intellectual health, it’d begin promoting not anythingbutr corn and broccoli. Nutrition is critical to how absolutely everyone feels. If even the maximum jovial person ate nothing however Whoppers or Big Macs for the next six months, his temper could worsen.
Put it this way: Donald Trump loves rapid food. It’s all he eats. Do you want to be like Donald Trump?
Of direction, “no one is satisfied all the time,” Burger King. And of course, it’s critical to “maintain it real” on the subject of emotional health. But sitting below fluorescent lighting, even as tucking into empty energy that telegraphs your nation-of-mind, isn’t any manner of chasing down the Zen of self-actualization.
It is a manner to make an idiot of yourself in public. I regularly assume how specific the world might be now if the finest generation that fought in the Second World War have been a gaggle of snowflakes forehead-overwhelmed into stepping into touch with their innermost feelings. Democracy, as we are aware of it, could not exist. If Burger King should try and tie mood to food for advertising and marketing purposes, it must at the least be aspirational. Forget approximately “Pissed,” “Blue,” “DGAF,” “Salty,” and “YAAS.” The “Real Meals” have to be known as “Resilient,” “Driven,” “Buoyant,” “Sage,” and “Bring It.”
