Painfully Thick

2009reaction imagedeclining

Published September 20, 2026

Painfully Thick started as a McDonald's advertising slogan for their milkshakes and later took on a second life online as a reaction image and Drakeposting template. The phrase found new meaning once thicc hit slang vocabulary, giving the ad copy an accidental double meaning that anime and meme communities ran with through the late 2010s.

advertising memesdouble entendre memesfast food memesaccidental fame memesreaction memes

Overview

The joke hinges on a collision between McDonald's straight-faced billboard copy and the thicc slang term that spread through internet English in the mid-2010s1. Reaction versions pair the phrase with images of curvy characters, oversized food, or dense-looking objects, letting the ad copy carry the punchline on its own.

The format also fed into Drakeposting variants, where Painfully Thick sat in the second panel as a mock stamp of approval on whatever the poster was hyping up2. Anime communities did the heaviest lifting with it, tacking the McDonald's photo onto edits of visual novel characters and Fate/Grand Order fanart.

Origin & Background

Platform
McDonald's ad campaign (source) / Reddit (viral spread)
Date
2009

The McDonald's ad ran Painfully Thick as a straight sell for how dense their milkshakes were. The earliest saved commentary appeared on November 30, 2009 from Falkon Digital, who flagged a Painfully Thick billboard placed directly next to a L'Oreal ad featuring Cheryl Cole2. The unfortunate side-by-side placement is what got the phrase circulating in the first place, since neither the ad agency nor McDonald's created the meme themselves.

How It Spread

Frequently Asked Questions