McPrank: 4 Teens Cited for McDonald's Rap

Stacy Lunsford
October 31, 2009
Sociology 313-003
Blog Post #3

McPrank: Four Teens Cited in McDonald's Rap

In Salt Lake City, four teens were cited for rapping their order in the McDonald's drive-thru. The American Forks Police cited the teens earlier this week for disorderly conduct after rapping their meal order. The teens said that they were just imitating a popular video on You Tube. One of the teenagers, Spenser Dauwalder, said that employees at the McDonald's told him and his friends that they were holding up the line and needed to order or leave. The 18 year old said that there was nobody else in line and that him and his friends left without buying anything. The manager wrote down their license plate and called police. Spenser and his friends were later cited at a volleyball match by the officers. Spenser told KSL News radio that they were just having fun and didn't think that it would escalate to something this big. Disorderly conduct citations are issued when someone does something to cause annoyance or alarm. The disorderly conduct citation is an infraction that is similar to that of a speeding ticket. The police said that it wasn't that they were rapping, but it was that they were holding things up. The teens were asked several times to speak plainly when the manager came outside. The owner – operator of the McDonald's issued a statement saying that the issue was about the employee's safety. The employees said that they felt their safety was at risk as a result of these actions by the individuals in the drive-thru, so they contacted the authorities. Spenser's mother, Sharon, said that they would fight the citation.

Citation:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/us_new-weird_news

I think that this article relates to social control because this is an example how those in control want to dominate and all that occurred was teens acting out of the norm and then receiving a citation for it. The whole incident seems ridiculous because there were just teens rapping their meal order, nobody was acting in a threatening manner. At most what should've happened was that they were asked to leave, but to call authorities and track them down to issue a citation seems to go too far. I think that it was outrageous that the employees were concerned about their safety when all the teens did was rap their meal order. It seems as though the McDonald's employees made the issue bigger than what it really was, which was teenagers just acting silly.