Painfully Thick meme gallery example

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 memes double entendre memes fast food memes accidental fame memes reaction 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

The image bounced around ad-culture blogs through 2010, including the charlottehancocks blogspot and the McDonald's-tracking site McServed2. Cheezburger picked it up on July 7, 2014, and Jokideo posted a "That's What She Said" version two days later on July 9, 20142.

Real momentum only arrived once thicc became mainstream slang for curvy body types1. On March 4, 2018, Reddit user koalamaster12334433 made a Doki Doki Literature Club image macro using the phrase that pulled over 870 upvotes. On March 20, 2019, user ProffesionalWaifu posted an edit on the r/saber subreddit that crossed 1,000 points2. From there the ad photo became a stock element in anime waifu edits, though usage tapered as thicc slang itself aged out.

Timeline

2009-11-30

Falkon Digital posts the earliest known commentary on the Painfully Thick billboard, pointing out its placement next to a L'Oreal Cheryl Cole ad.

2014-07-07

Cheezburger reposts the McDonald's ad image, giving it wider meme-audience reach.

2014-07-09

Jokideo posts a "That's What She Said" joke built around the same billboard photo.

2018-03-04

Reddit user koalamaster12334433 posts a Doki Doki Literature Club image macro using the phrase that gathers over 870 upvotes.

2019-03-20

User ProffesionalWaifu posts a Painfully Thick edit to r/saber that crosses 1,000 points.

Frequently Asked Questions