When I worked at a restaurant I had a server come back and say the customer wanted it to look like the picture. (Restaurant was slow ATM) I did my best and it was almost exact. The server said the guy was super happy and tipped well. The server did not give me a tip so fuck that guy and I never did it again.
this post was submitted on 12 May 2025
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Y'all didn't pool tips?
You guys have tips? (Just following the meme)
There have been a lot of good documentaries about how food ads are made. One of the best was done for PBS though in Don’t remember if it was Frontline, Nova, or a different program. Here’s what I do remember:
Companies are required to use the actual food that’s for sale in the ad. So if cereal is the product for sale, it has to be the actual cereal. The milk can be fake (it’s usually something like Elmer’s glue because it photographs well and won’t cause sogginess). The ad company will buy multiple boxes and pick out the best flakes. The food stylist places the flakes individually for the photo.
In the case of burgers like this one, they buy up fifty burgers from multiple locations. They deep freeze them to retain shape and color. They pick the best components from each. They build a burger from these best parts. They front load the ingredients toward the camera. They also paint the beef patty with glycerine to simulate hot and juicy grease in the photo.
I remember watching those as a kid. I immediately decided then and there that nothing could be trusted in a commercial. BK was by far the most egregious example.
With burgers in particular, I remember them cutting a slit in the back of the patty just so they could stretch it out off camera to make it look bigger.
total bullshit.
I wish I could find that original PBS documentary I watched. It was really good. I distinctly remember the team bringing in garbage bags of hamburgers they had bought around town to build the on camera burger from. I think it aired in the 1990s. I have no idea if any of the regulations they were bound by and trying to “work around” back then are still in place.
I've shot burgers for a similar company, and it's all made 'fresh' to spec next to the studio. The stylist will have ridiculous amounts of everything to choose the best pieces and place by hand. Deep freezing and rebuilding sounds bonkers, how would that even work with a burger?
how would that even work with a burger?
It wouldn't The parent comment is at best by someone who misremembered the details, and doesn't know enough about food presentation to have been able to be able to recite the details back, or is at worst someone who is full of shit.
It's way easier to hand-pick each lettuce leaf and tomato slice than it is to order from a bunch of locations and try to freeze that complete burger in a specific moment in time.
Yeah, I don't believe they adhere to that, and I'd like citations and references to these "rules." I remember that some of these ads are all props made by special effects companies.
And why does milk get a pass, but nothing else?
Because it is not the thing being sold in the package.
It absolutely is, it just doesn't look exactly like it.
But then again, I couldn't care less that something I'm going to eat doesn't look like a prop from a movie.
Your cereal comes with milk?
Leadios, apparently.
Weirdly, the US is actually super strict about food advertising. All of the basic ingredients/components have to be there — but where they get creative is with fake steam, camera trickery, suggestion/innuendo, props, etc. Like if you were selling cornflakes, you could fake the milk to look extra thick, surround the bowl with fake fruit to imply healthy, all sorts of stuff, so long as the cornflakes were the exact ones out of the box. So yeah, the advertised burger is technically the same one you’re getting, but it’s not getting a four hour prep session.
You want to gut our healthcare? Fine. Education? No problem. Infrastructure and key systems of governance? Be our guest.
But if you even think of exaggerating a little more than the expected amount in a fast food advertisement, you will face the wrath of a thousand mighty eagles dual wielding AR-15’s in a torrent of judicial violence.
Why is Burger King being singled out for this when all fast food pulls this shit
There can be only one king, and he prefers McDonald's.
Honestly, I think Burger is one of the worst offenders. I think of other fast food places around me: McDonald's, Jack in the Box, Wendy's, Chick'fil'A; none of them are a match for the ad photo, but most of them are moderately close. Like "all the ingredients depicted are here, in basically the same proportions, and look reasonably fresh" close. Burger King is the one that regularly looks utterly pathetic, compared to the ad. Also, maybe Taco Bell.
Taco Bell tastes good though. Burger King is disappointing in appearance and taste.
Does this open me up to lawsuits for my dick pictures because I definitely enhance size and color.
Reality of food appearances really depends on individual location. While my local burger king does not 100% match the ads, they're still miles above whatever the fuck location made this double-top bun bullshit.
And if Burger King is getting flak for it, so should every single fast food place. None of them match their advertisements in a way that doesn't feel like a scam.
Chicken tenders. Why do I get 1 normal-ish or fucking gigantic then 2 that looked like they were hungry most of their lives and the last one of a 4 piece looks like it was just a large ass wad of breading.
Good. Please do McDonalds and Wendy’s now.
Wow those are some depressing burgers
"reality" pic is fake/staged. Bottom is actually a top bun (rare, but not impossible to get in the wild) however - you can also see the cheese seemingly melted in two directions... So this was actually 2 separate burgers shortly before the pic was taken.
No, its two seperate burgers that weren't made right that an employee mashed together to serve to a customer instead of making a fresh one.
doesn't change the fact the bk fakemac as served in the restaurant at the time absolutely never ever looked like the menu pic, and quite literally impossible for them to create in-store using any items in inventory.