It can be frustrating when you visit your favorite fast-food spot, only to discover that the offerings you’ve been craving are unavailable.
One of the longest-running jokes in the fast-food industry that embodies this feeling of disappointment is McDonald’s ice cream machine. There have even been social media posts where customers have even caught employees “lying” about the appliance being out of order.
One McDonald’s employee, a TikToker named Isiah (@lylflare), addressed these consumer concerns over currently unavailable items, not by posting a TikTok giving reasons why some products are temporarily out of purchase, but by uploading a spoof video “confirming” their suspicions surrounding item availability.
He did so in a viral clip that’s accrued over 138,000 views as of Saturday, and several commenters thought that Isiah’s clip was an accurate depiction of how McDonald’s employees treat this specific customer gripe.
@lylflare Nah fr everything be broken#mcdonalds#real#broken#icecream#fyp#4u ♬ original sound – Isiah
In the video, Isiah sarcastically re-enacts clear lies he tells customers about various Mickey D’s offerings being unavailable using a simple gag.
He begins the clip by saying, “Sorry but our soda machine’s broke.” He then takes a swig of soda, before the clip cuts to him saying, “Sorry our nugget machine broke,” before taking a bite of a crispy chicken McNugget.
The next clip, which shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who regularly frequents the chain, highlights the infamously unavailable dessert from the franchise.
“Sorry but our ice cream machine broke,” Isiah relays in a deadpan fashion, before chomping down on a vanilla cone. The last bit of the video extends the joke, where he records another McDonald’s worker on shift. Isiah puts the woman in the frame and says, “Our manager machine broke.”
One user wrote that Isiah’s video was about as “Mcreallllll” as it gets.
Someone else, who appeared to be a food service industry worker themselves, remarked that this accurately depicted the broken-machine struggle of the Mickey D’s location they worked at.
“The way our frappe machine hasn’t been working for 3 weeks,” they wrote.
It appears that this other TikToker was in the same boat as well, sharing, “That happened today, our ice cream machine “broke” but we kept eating the ice cream.”
One other person escalated the running joke even further, writing, “The store machine broke.”
While some commenters appeared to accept the broken machine “excuse,” there was one customer who said they stopped going to McDonald’s as a result of the constant lack of their favorite item availability. “Literally my local McDonald’s…. I switched to In-N-Out mejor,” they said.
Statista, which tracks the customer satisfaction rankings across various businesses using a number of different qualifiers and data points, reported that McDonald’s satisfaction score has dipped 2 points from 2020 and 2021.
The chain currently sits at a grade of 68 out of 75 possible points when it comes to consumer contentment. According to the outlet, McDonald’s earned some of its highest customer satisfaction scores in 2012 and 2013 where it hovered around the 73-point mark, and its lowest was in 2000, where it clocked in 59 points.
The Daily Dot has reached out to McDonald’s via email and Isiah via TikTok comment.
