Burger King Foot Lettuce

About

Burger King Foot Lettuce refers to a scandal in which a Burger King employee was photographed standing in two plastic tubs of lettuce with shoes on. Shortly after its initial appearance on 4chan, the location of the Burger King restaurant was subsequently identified and the photograph in question was sent to local and national news outlets, ultimately resulting in the termination of the employee. In late 2017, 4chan's doxing story resurfaced on social media after a dramatic retelling of the episode went viral on YouTube and became a subject of copypastas, remixes and parodies.

Origin

On July 16th, 2012, an anonymous 4chan user identifying himself as a Burger King employee, posted a picture of himself standing in a box of lettuce in the kitchen, along with the caption: "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King."

Spread

4chan users discovered the Exif data on the photo, which they used to surmise that the picture was taken in a Burger King on Mayfield Road in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. They then began contacting local news outlets in Ohio as well as the manager of the restaurant. Clevescene^[1] broke the story on July 17th, and upon showing the picture to the Mayfield Road Burger King manager, she said "Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired." A compilation of comments from 4chan leading to the exposure was posted to Imgur^[2] on July 17th (shown below). The story was covered by national news sites including Today,^[3] Gawker,^[4] and The Daily Dot.^[5]

Top15s' Video / Burger King Foot Lettuce Copypasta

On November 11th, 2017, the story was recalled on the YouTube channel Top15s in a video called "Top 15 Mysteries Solved by 4Chan" (shown below). The video gained over 1.4 million views.

The narration of the clip by a user named Chills caught the attention of other internet users. On November 19th, YouTuber ling isolated the introduction to the video where Chills begins to talk about "Burger King Foot Lettuce." The clip gained over 15,000 views (shown below, left). YouTuber madison did the same on January 24th, 2018, gaining over 23,000 views (shown below, right). After these videos were posted, additional remixes began appearing on YouTube. The text of the Top15s video was posted to Reddit's /r/copypasta^[6] on January 28th, 2018.

Number 15: Burger king foot lettuce. The last thing you'd want in your Burger King burger is someone's foot fungus. But as it turns out, that might be what you get. A 4channer uploaded a photo anonymously to the site showcasing his feet in a plastic bin of lettuce. With the statement: "This is the lettuce you eat at Burger King." Admittedly, he had shoes on.

But that's even worse.

The post went live at 11:38 PM on July 16, and a mere 20 minutes later, the Burger King in question was alerted to the rogue employee. At least, I hope he's rogue. How did it happen? Well, the BK employee hadn't removed the Exif data from the uploaded photo, which suggested the culprit was somewhere in Mayfield Heights, Ohio. This was at 11:47. Three minutes later at 11:50, the Burger King branch address was posted with wishes of happy unemployment. 5 minutes later, the news station was contacted by another 4channer. And three minutes later, at 11:58, a link was posted: BK's "Tell us about us" online forum. The foot photo, otherwise known as exhibit A, was attached. Cleveland Scene Magazine contacted the BK in question the next day. When questioned, the breakfast shift manager said "Oh, I know who that is. He's getting fired." Mystery solved, by 4chan. Now we can all go back to eating our fast food in peace.

On March 5th, 2018, YouTuber Saltydkan uploaded a video in which he read the text of the original video but without Chills' inflection, gaining over 119,000 views (shown below, left). On March 3rd, YouTuber grandayy uploaded a parody of the video which gained over 1.4 million views (shown below, right).

Search Interest

External References