If you’ve ever ordered a McDonald’s burger expecting poster perfection, but instead ended up with a sad hot mess, don’t worry. You’re most definitely not alone.
On Instagram, the saddest burgers of any persuasion—rogue cheese slices that simply refused to be sandwiched, the abstract artwork that is splattered sauce, and confused layers whose odds are stacked against them—can be found on @mcsenget, an account that has been quietly documenting hilariously misaligned McDonald’s menu items.
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The name Mcsenget is a portmanteau of “McDonald’s” and “senget,” Malay for “tilted,” a colloquial reference to the floppy burgers found across Singapore, where the account was created.
Ben Chia, 27, one of Mcsenget’s founding members, told VICE that the proverbial sesame seeds of the popular meme account were first sowed about five years ago, when he and his friends used to frequent McDonald’s after band practice.
“We just get very annoyed [that] when we order Filet-O-Fish—specifically Filet-O-Fish—it tends to be senget. It tends to be off,” Chia said.
The petty problem proved to be a major inconvenience, Chia explained, because unlike other McDonald’s sandwiches, the Filet-O-Fish sports what appear to be softer steamed buns. This means that when one tries to reassemble the misaligned sandwich, the melted cheese tends to tear the bread apart.
This presented a painful dilemma for burger enthusiasts like Chia and his friends: Do you eat a sandwich that’s comically crooked, or one that has torn up buns? Either way, Chia realized that tilted sandwiches were depriving him of a more enjoyable eating experience.
“With a single bite, there’s no way that you can eat the fish, cheese, and bun all together. You might end up with some bites that’s just the bun, or just the fish,” said Chia. “So there is this mini sense of frustration.”
Mcsenget now has over 14,000 followers, but the popular meme account began as a private Facebook album shared among Chia and his friends. It was a way to document the misaligned burgers they regularly encountered at their favorite food spot, which they claim already looked ridiculous fresh out of the box, untampered.
The album was popular within their own social network for years. Then, in early 2020, the group of friends decided to take their burger diaries to Instagram. There, they found success sharing hilariously sad burgers, even catching the attention of local news outlets.
They also built a little community that shares the same resigned amusement towards the Jenga that is the burger assembly line. Soon, people were sending in photos of their own encounters with tilted burgers across Singapore. Once in a while, the Mcsenget team also receives submissions from overseas, proving that floppy burgers are an international frustration that can unite us all.
In July, after requests from avid followers, Mcsenget released merchandise, including T-shirts and stickers designed as a tribute to the fast food chain.
Having scrutinized more topsy turvy burgers than anyone probably has, Chia and his friends have put together their own (unproven) theories on how McDonald’s sandwiches go awry.
Besides common explanations like food being shaken up during delivery rides or hurried burger-making during the peak hour rush, Chia noticed some interesting patterns in the misalignment of certain burgers.
Those who order McSpicy sandwiches, which star a thick piece of fried chicken, tend to find the lettuce scattered around the box instead of neatly sandwiched between the buns, he said.
Filet-O-Fish sandwiches, on the other hand, are often cursed with what Chia calls the “cheese slap,” where a single slice of cheese is mysteriously stuck onto the box or melted onto the side of the burger.
The wildly misplaced cheese slice could be dismissed as a one-off mistake, but Chia said he has seen too many runaway cheeses to ignore the fact that they’re a lot more common than we think.
While McDonald’s continues flipping burgers, Mcsenget is busy flipping people’s reactions towards being served these imperfect sandwiches—where quiet disappointment used to be the only sensible response to floppy burgers, the meme account has cultivated a community of Mcsenget spotters who are strangely eager to snag a tilted burger or observe a cheese slap up close.
“That is something we are quite proud of,” said Chia. “I’m glad that this is something that people appreciate. And, you know, sometimes it helps us relax a little bit to not take things too seriously.”
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