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McDonald’s quietly rolled out a fully AI-generated Christmas commercial for its Netherlands market in early December 2025, and the result was as tone-deaf as anyone could have feared. The spot—posted online and quickly delisted after a firestorm—replaced real people and real warmth with creepy, distorted CGI and a sneering message that painted the season as “the most terrible time of the year.”
The ad stitched together rapid, glitchy vignettes of holiday mishaps—exploding trees, ruined dinners, and waxy, off-looking characters—then suggested fleeing to McDonald’s to escape family and tradition. Viewers were unsettled not just by the visuals but by the nihilistic emotional tone, a cynical sell that treats Christmas as something to be escaped rather than celebrated.
When the outrage rolled in, McDonald’s disabled comments and ultimately pulled the ad, but the damage was done: social feeds were filled with ridicule and disgust. This wasn’t a misfire in one market; it was a symptom of a corporate class that thinks algorithmic coldness can replace human storytelling—and that Americans won’t notice.
The agency behind the spot bragged about weeks of “prompt engineering” and defended the campaign, even posting the now-infamous line, “AI didn’t make this film. We did.” That defensive posture only made things worse, exposing the pretense that tediously coaxing a machine equals craft, while real artists and working crews lose jobs and dignity to shortcuts.
Let’s be blunt: this is not innovation, it’s enervation. When global brands like McDonald’s lean on soulless AI to sell cynical messages about family and faith, they reveal their contempt for the values that built their customer base. Conservatives should call out this corporate arrogance for what it is—a betrayal of community, craft, and common sense.
Americans deserve better than cheap, manufactured scolds that mock holiday joy while cutting corners on human labor. If these companies want to test the limits of what passes for “creative,” let them do it with their own budgets and shareholders, not our cultural institutions and seasonal traditions. Vote with your wallet and support businesses that still hire real people to make real art.
This mess is a reminder that technology must serve people, not replace the human ties that bind us. Hold firms accountable, demand real craftsmanship, and keep Christmas a time for families, not for faceless marketing experiments. Our traditions and our workers are worth defending against the cold convenience of the AI industry.
