The Real Reason McDonald's Fans Love This TikTok Star
What do you have to do to become TikTok famous? You could popularize a dance trend. People have gotten millions of views removing their own moles, or doing other things to other parts of their body that we won't mention here (via BuzzFeed). Or you could take the easy route and just be Gordon Ramsay.
If none of these have piqued your interest, another reliable way to go viral on TikTok is to post rarely seen behind-the-scenes footage from a fast food restaurant's kitchen. Some people get lots of attention posting videos of mundane work tasks they think will gross out the TikTok community, including a viral post that showed how KFC's gravy is made. Another tactic is to post about how to get free food at McDonald's.
McDonald's employee @officialcaleb0 is like a lot of teenagers these days, dreaming of 100,000 TikTok followers and the video that will break the 1 million mark for likes. One of Caleb's dreams came true. He found his own fast food TikTok niche — giving customers more food than they asked for. In one TikTok, Caleb puts two sausage patties in a Sausage McGriddle for some lucky customer. In another TikTok, he puts two fried-chicken patties into one McChicken sandwich.
Still not fired, Caleb posted another video to TikTok, twice, and got more than 1.7 million likes. This time, he put 30 Chicken McNuggets in a box of 20.
TikTok users lavished this McDonald's employee with praise
Caleb's two identical TikTok posts showing him putting 30 McNuggets in a 20-nugget box have been viewed a combined 9.4 million times and have received more than 10,000 comments. Several of those commenters worried that Caleb would be fired. "He is officially the Nugget Lord," one commenter said. "Protect him at all costs." Another commenter said, "We need more people like you in this world." (We're not sure McDonald's accountants would agree.)
More than one commenter was curious to know which of McDonald's more than 38,000 restaurants worldwide (via ThoughtCo) he was employed at. Although he has understandably not yet disclosed the info, Caleb's TikTok homepage says he's in Memphis.
Caleb's first McNugget video was posted in August and the two-patty McGriddle TikTok went up on Nov. 10. "I'm convinced these the only videos that [I] really get clout off of," Caleb captioned this most recent McDonald's TikTok. He's right about that, but at least everyone's happy. Caleb has his clout, his customers have extra food, and apparently, the manager of a certain McDonald's in Memphis doesn't use TikTok.