Kanye West's passion for McDonald's

Among the many commercials aired during the night of the Super Bowl the one that has definitely earned the honors of the chronicle is "Can I Get Uhhhhhhhhhhhh" by McDonald's that boasts among its protagonists Kanye West. Over the years Ye has never hidden his passion for fast-food, more than once the subject of tweets and statements by West who in 2016 had published "The McDonald's Man" in Frank Ocean's zine "Boys Don't Cry". The same year Kanye had then declared on Twitter "McDonald's is my favorite brand", a phrase that an hour after its publication had increased mentions of fast-food on Twitter by 900%.

An effect similar to the one generated by "The McDonald's Man", which after its publication caused tweets dedicated to fast-food to increase from three to two thousand per minute. “Kanye’s tweet caused a huge increase in mentions related to McDonald’s over the last hour,” Chris Kerns of Spredfast had told CNBC. “While taste-makers and influencers often share branded promotional content with little fanfare, the vague nature of the tweet, combined with his equally head scratching ‘The McDonald’s Man’ poem earlier this month, have added to the fervor. It will be interesting to see how and if McDonald’s responds.”

The answer was only now, almost six years after that tweet, a period of time that the company has used to refine its marketing strategies with cross-sector collabo as the one with BTS and, of course, the one with Travis Scott. If in that case the commercial aims were very clear, in this case Kanye West is present, before being a cultural icon, as a McDonald's fan and therefore an even more credible ambassador than his predecessors. The fast-food, as it was for Gap, represents once again that maximum expression of "popular", understood as within the reach of the people, which has always characterized the aesthetics of Ye, able to range from a McMenu to a very expensive dinner at Nobu as if nothing had happened.