I couldn’t have been older than 16 when I discovered what’s colloquially known as the “McGangbang.” A Cracked.com article about the most debauched fast food items tipped me off to it, but unlike the other entries on the list, the McGangbang wasn’t on McDonald’s menu. Instead, it was a raunchy and decadent secret item, known only to a few freaky McDonald’s fans and a small handful of in-the-know employees.
For a good few years of my life, I ordered this monstrosity all the time. But now, in my maturity, I’ve forgotten its glory. Curious as to where it came from and whether it’s still being whispered about in McDonald’s across the land, I did some digging into its history to try to find out how such an unfathomable sandwich ended up in my mouth.
First of all, what is a McGangbang?
Simply put, it’s a McChicken sandwiched between the upper and lower sections of a Double Cheeseburger. Some accounts have the chicken placed inside a McDouble — a slightly different burger — but I’ll chalk that up to regional variation.
What’s the point of that?
With both its component items on the value menu, the McGangbang is an efficient culinary wallop for a low price. Plus, it has a weirdly sexual name, which could entice teens or people with that same level of maturity to make that request on the way through the drive-thru.
What does it taste like?
As a youngling, I remember thinking the crispness of the McChicken sandwich paired superbly with the chewy mouthfeel of the burger patties. Now, I’d say the taste and texture is more akin to a well-seasoned piece of AstroTurf. I appreciate a decadent fast-food order as much as the next person (my standard order at In-N-Out is the four-cheese, four-patty colossus known as the “4×4”), but the McGangbang is a bit much for me in my late 20s. Now, I’m more likely to order and eat the two sandwiches separately.
Why such a sexy, sexy name?
As someone who’s had a lot of group sex and a lot of hamburgers, the sandwich’s name is a total misnomer. A gangbang is an orgy of singular focus, with a group of three or more people focusing on fucking one person. If the chicken sandwich is the one being fucked and the two beef patties are meant to be its two lovers, it simply doesn’t qualify as anything but a threesome.
You would have to add something like a Filet-O-Fish for it to to be true McGangbang, otherwise some better names for the sandwich would be a McThreeway, McEiffel Tower or a McDoublestuffed. I can only guess that the sandwich’s creators were somewhat less aware of the intricacies of a proper gangbang, otherwise they would have never given the sandwich such an erroneous name.
Speaking of those creators, who invented this monstrosity?
The oldest known texts on the subject can be dated back to an Urban Dictionary entry from November 2006. It stated that the meaty behemoth was concocted at a McDonald’s in Daytona Beach, though this claim is hard to verify. But the sandwich’s heyday seems to have come and gone, with not a single mention of it on the McDonald’s subreddit in the past five years and the most recent articles covering the subject dating back to 2015.
That said, it’s still whispered about in r/McLounge, the subreddit for McDonald’s employees, which leads me to believe that it continues to be a thing (albeit an uncommon one). As recently as two weeks ago, one employee described an interaction with a customer that soured after they refused to make a McGangbang, and a two-year-old post suggests funny comebacks to throw back at customers when they order one.
What’s the funniest way to respond to a customer who orders a McGangBang from McLounge
Notably, many of the employees who responded to both posts had never heard of such a sandwich. One, who mentioned the McGangbang on Twitter, said his college friends told him about it — guess this isn’t something McDonald’s Corporate includes in their menu training.
In short, the McGangbang’s buzz seems to have dissipated in the past few years, with a steady decline in search frequency since 2013, which we can assume was the zenith of the secret sandwich’s popularity. One can only hope this era ended because we, as a culture, realized it’s an inappropriate thing to ask a minimum-wage customer service worker for.
Can I still order one?
Technically, you can order one at any McDonald’s, but again, odds are against you that they’ll know what you’re talking about, and even less that they’ll make one for you. Believe me, I tried — when I recently called my local McDonald’s to place a McGangbang order, they flat out refused. In the rare instances that other people order them, employees are often completely dismayed by the request, and it’s unclear whether the orders are filled (or even how they’d be entered into the system).
Mcgangbang? from McLounge
With this in mind, the real question you should be asking is not whether you can order a McGangbang, but whether you should.
…Should I?
I’d say no. Again, McDonald’s employees aren’t likely to know what you’re talking about as they aren’t really incentivized to know about the “secret menu.” As Snopes discovered, there is no officially recognized secret menu, just menu hacks that random customers come up with and attempt to canonize.
Another reason you shouldn’t order it is because it’s kind of a rude and creepy thing to order. While I thought ordering the sandwich was a lark as a teen, I wouldn’t dare order it now for fear of looking like a sex pest and making someone working in fast food very uncomfortable. I mean, think about if you were working the counter at McDonald’s all night, waiting to go home and then some jagoff asked you for a McGangbang. They wouldn’t be outside of their rights to throw you out on your ass.
So how do I get one?
Order the two sandwiches separately and put them together yourself. Build the sandwich Frankenstein you want to see in the world.
Chingy Nea
Chingy Nea is a writer, comedian and critically acclaimed ex-girlfriend based out of L.A. and Oakland.
