Sweet Chili and Cajun: Tasting the Power of Language with the BTS McDonald's Meal Available to Purchase

In “Sweet Chili and Cajun: Tasting the Power of Language with the BTS McDonald’s Meal,” Melody Lynch-Kimery observes that the 2021 BTS Meal was the first time McDonald’s promoted a meal worldwide using a language other than English on food packaging. Lynch-Kimery tracks the meal’s release and reception in different countries and linguistic landscapes to understand how the marketing campaign reinforced and disrupted linguistic capital across cultural and economic contexts. Through social media and press coverage, Lynch-Kimery examines how English was decentered in various ways, and how in this moment, Korean, more specifically Hangeul, was foregrounded. The BTS Meal’s marketing success, even with its uneven implementation, points to the potentials and limits of this moment of language diversification within the larger structures of corporate capitalism.