McWorld

McWorld is a term sometimes used a) to describe the spreading of McDonald's restaurants throughout the world, as the result of globalization, and b) more often and more generally to describe the effects of international McDonaldization of services and commercialization of goods and services as an element of globalization as a whole. Like "McJob," this term naturally is not currently favored by McDonald's Corporation. (Ironically, McDonalds used the term themselves in an advertising slogan less than 10 years ago, "McWorld: Hey, It Could Happen!".)

Critics claim that fast food chain restaurants such as McDonald's are destructive towards many aspects of the indigenous cultures in countries where they have been introduced. McDonald's itself, however, does make some effort to preserve indigenous culture; for example, McDonald's restaurants in India serve no beef and include "quick-service" versions of traditional Indian vegetarian foods. Although critics note that many fast food restaurant menus include high-calorie and/or high-fat items, McDonalds has however attempted to lose the unhealthy image by introducing new menus such as the "Salads Plus" menu, and new items such as sandwiches.

In 1996, Rutgers political science professor Benjamin Barber published a bestselling book titled Jihad vs. McWorld [1], which describes international commercialization as one of two great clashing forces of the 21st century, the other being tribalistic religious fundamentalism. A 1999 book entitled Mustard Seed Versus Mcworld by evangelical minister Tom Sine implores Christians to reject the diminution of religious values that he contends results from excessive commercialization.[2]

McWorld was also the name of a TV campaign by the restaurant that ran many of its ads during Saturday morning cartoons of the early '90s featuring young children with ambitious dreams of their world, it would conclude with someone saying "Hey.. it could happen.". The term was also a planet visited by the cast of the flash cartoon Bonus Stage parodying the globalization (or rather galaxy-wide spreading) of McDonalds.