About

Luke Gatti's Mac and Cheese Rant refers to a viral video in which 19-year-old University of Connecticut student Luke Gatti engages in a violent altercation with a cafeteria manager before being arrested by police.

Origin

In early October 2015, a video of an inebriated college student in a heated argument with a manager at an on-campus food court was uploaded to YouTube. In the video, a manager at Union Street Market asks a customer, later identified as University of Connecticut freshman student Luke Gatti, to leave the cafeteria after catching him drink an alcoholic beverage on the premises. Gatti then refuses to exit, demands an order of “bacon jalapeno mac and cheese” and pushes the manager several times, shortly before being tackled to the ground by fellow employees. The original video was subsequently removed from YouTube due to a copyright claim by Michael Vincent Uccello.

Spread

On October 6th, 2015, Redditor CynicalCount submitted the video to the /r/PublicFreakout^[1] subreddit, where it gathered upwards of 4,500 votes (95% upvoted) and 1,300 comments in the first week. That day, the men's interest blog Bartsool Sports posted two Snapchat photographs of Gatti packing his belongings into his father's car (shown below).

Also on October 6th, Twitter user @SpencerSays^[3] tweeted photographs of a macroni and cheese stuffed calzone named the "Mac-Gatti Zone" sold at the restaurant D.P. Dough (shown below, left). Meanwhile, Redditor holyfruits posted a Straight Outta Somewhere image macro featuring a screen capture of Gatti to the /r/Uconn^[4] subreddit (shown below, right).

On the following day, the news site Death and Taxes^[6] reported that Gatti was rumored to have been expelled for the altercation. Also on October 7th, Gawker^[2] published an article about the incident, which noted that Gatti had been arrested for disorderly conduct twice while attending the University of Massachusetts in 2014. On October 8th, the late night talk show Conan aired a segment on the viral video, featuring a parody promo ad for the University of Connecticut (shown below).

On October 9th, a GoFundMe^[5] page was launched to raise money for the Union Street Market staff to have a "nice night out." Within three days, the crowdfunding campaign garnered upwards of $1,900 in donations.

Apology Video

On October 11th, Gatti uploaded an apology video to YouTube in which he expressed remorse for the incident, claiming it was a "wake up call."

Florida Arrest

On June 28th, 2016, the news site MassLive reported that Gatti had been arrested in Boca Raton, Florida for assaulting a law enforcement officer, and was scheduled for a disposition on July 27th.

Search Interest

External References