The Fast Food Trend Reddit Is Sick And Tired Of

TikTok trends aren't always the clickbait abominations many folks expect from the social media platform. The cottage cheese ice cream innovation wasn't bad, and the "hear me out" cake idea was cute. Then we have something like the trend that turns beloved characters into edible nightmares that once again proves people have too much time on their hands. There is also one TikTok craze that encourages entitled fast food customers to ask for off-menu items, and Redditors are declaring, "Enough already!"

The latest trend to draw the ire of Redditors is the infamous "secret menu" at fast food restaurants. To be clear, there are some legitimate things customers can get at various establishments that aren't advertised, like ordering your burger "animal style" at what was Anthony Bourdain's favorite fast food joint, In-N-Out Burger. However, it is all too often the case that a random content creator "exposes" the "secret menu" when all they are really doing is making the staff's life difficult for clicks.

Occasionally, an employee at a fast food restaurant will go the extra mile for a polite, loyal regular who wants to mix things up a bit. It's a way of showing mutual appreciation to a patron who treats the staff with respect, and those fun orders are likely not on an official secret menu. The problem arises when every Jack and Diane hears about it on TikTok and starts treating employees like their own personal chefs. Netizens on Reddit are sounding off.

One problem with the secret menu trend is that too many folks don't fully comprehend what it actually is. "It's not a secret menu item; you just bought like three different things and put it together and called it a secret menu item," one person wrote on the subreddit r/AskReddit. What people are really doing when they order fast food like this is asking for something that someone on the internet came up with, and the employees may not even know what it is.

On the subreddit r/starbucks, an individual voiced their frustration over the social media trend because it is unfair to employees (especially new ones) when customers demand something off the menu, like a cotton candy Frappuccino. "I don't know how to make those, and just because Linda at the store on the other side of town knew doesn't mean that I do," they wrote. Someone on the subreddit r/Cooking agreed, posting, "As a former barista, I was expected (by customers) to know every single 'secret menu' item that some rando on the internet came up with? No, thank you." 

On the subreddit r/DairyQueen, one individual acquainted with working at the fast food restaurant pointed out that the primary problem is when customers feel entitled to secret menu items and lose the ability to treat employees like human beings. "I went along with it until customers got abusive with staff," they said. Many secret menus were never a secret at all; they were a way to express gratitude to a respectful regular. Yet, once it became a trend to order items not listed on the menu, too many bad apples ruined it for everyone.