File this under, "That awkward moment when you have to create a PSA to convince people that your food is made of food."
In case you missed it, over the past year, a photo of a McDonald's McRib — frozen solid, stark white, and largely unrecognizable as anything related to meat — made its way around the internet.
McDonald's Mcrib before it's cooked pic.twitter.com/uJzkfDX1Xk
— iTweetFacts (@iTweetFACTS) March 24, 2014
The horror in response to it made headlines, from, "Frozen McRib photo will make you question everything in life" to "Picture of frozen McRib goes viral, churns stomachs"
As a way of pushing back on this as well as other nasty rumors about its products (think: pink slime), the restaurant partnered with MythBusters co-host Grant Imahara to create an ad campaign seemingly designed to disabuse customers of their grosser ideas about its offerings.
This installment stars bowtie-clad Wes Bellamy, a teacher who says he was identified by the restaurant to take part in the video after he tweeted "Woooowww!" along with the image — summing up the popular reactions to the frozen McRib pic.
In the video, Bellamy and Imahara take a field trip to Oklahoma City to see where the McRib is made. Viewers are treated to lots of shots of raw pork, which is transformed before their eyes into the "iconic shape" of the McRib, and flash frozen.
Spoiler alert: Bellamy is completely disarmed by the experience and takes back all of his initial skepticism. In addition to linking the production of the sandwich to his own grandmother's cooking, his reflections include: "This is not like I thought it would be," "That looks a lot different than what I saw on Twitter!" and: "All of my questions have been answered."
That's right: in end, the guy from Twitter sees the same white hunk of frozen sold McRib, but he feels a lot better about it because he knows its life story, as told by McDonald's. Apparently the idea of the campaign is that the rest of us will, too.
Further reading: A conspiracy of hogs: the McRib as arbitrage
