About

The J. Cole Meal refers to a series of memes imagining what a collaboration between rapper J. Cole and McDonald's might look like, with internet users joking that the "J. Cole Meal" would consist of a plain burger with no toppings or condiments and a glass of water. This is sometimes accompanied by the phrase, "So humble" as a dig at the rapper's perceived socially conscious and humble persona.

Origin

On August 15th, 2021, Twitter / X^[1] user @NAACPYOUNGBOY made a post that read, "J Cole gon have a McDonalds meal and his fans gon brag about how good it is without sides or a drink," gathering over 30,000 likes in three years (seen below).

Sometime in August after this initial post, a Twitter user posted an image of a burger with no toppings alongside a caption that read, "The J. Cole meal: plain burger with a cup of water. So humble 🙏🏽." The image was cropped and reposted to Reddit's^[2][3] /r/Hiphopcirclejerk and /r/playboicarti on August 18th, 2021, where it gathered over 1,000 and 5,000 upvotes, respectively, in roughly two years (seen below).

Spread

On March 16th, 2022, TikToker^[6] @banditisms posted a video showing his efforts to get a "J. Cole Meal" at Mcdonald's, gathering over 95,000 plays and 16,000 likes in two years (seen below).

The "J. Cole Meal" came to be referenced online in subsequent years, with Redditor /u/Abe2257 posting a photo of his McDonald's meal to /r/Jcole^[4] with the caption, "Just got my j cole meal." The post gathered over 1,000 upvotes in five days (seen below).

On April 27th, 2024, X^[5] user @slayworldalby quoted a tweet in which someone complained about common burger toppings, writing, "bro only eats the j. cole meal," and gathering over 7,000 likes in two days (seen below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References