Someone from new zealand posted on the chicago subreddit if anyone went to one of three specific McDonald's locations in April 2013
And it turns out that's the only known time McDonald's ever sold a product called "Shrimp McBites" which there is literally no physical evidence of ever existing
And there's a group of lost-media fans desperately trying to track down any solid material or photographic proof of it. There are like mockups of packaging art based on memories
I am completely obsessed
I love that the origin story is that this person tried to order them and the McDonald's said sorry and gave them Fish McBites instead and now this is their white whale
The only supposed evidence that anyone ever actually tried them is a single post on a poker forum that said they're "4/10" but the date on the post is before they were on sale and it's clear from context they're just rating the concept
It's possible that nobody ever ordered Shrimp McBites
@prehensile i am fully committed to following this saga omg
@prehensile more victims of the Mandela effect
@prehensile they could be an employee who was either involved with the product design or working in a test store that was getting set up to sell them.
@prehensile i worked at one of their test stores when i was in high school, and some pretty wonderful/awful stuff would come down the pipe and no one would ever order any of it except the employees.
@prehensile ah, yes, Nelson Mandela's favorite snack
@PetrichorSquirrel @prehensile made famous by his dinner with the B*renst**n Bears
@carcinopithecus @PetrichorSquirrel @prehensile It was a movie tie-in with _Shazaam_ (starring Sinbad as a genie).
@prehensile Simping corporate lore... I probably wouldn't get into that.
@samgai @prehensile I, too, hate fun
I don't hate fun, but if I'm going to twist my brain into knots tracking down ephemera, it's going to be of something I care about.
[NARRATOR VOICE] And that's how he wound up with a paper restaurant placemat from the middle 1960s promoting the Big Rock Point nuclear power station as a reason to visit Charlevoix, Michigan.
Someone actually went out to all three locations today but didn't turn anything up: https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/uobepp/to_anyone_who_worked_or_ate_at_wheaton_or_lombard/
here's the main thread: https://www.reddit.com/r/lostmedia/comments/t8cv6w/still_in_search_of_the_lost_mcdonalds_product/