The McDonald's Ice Cream Machine meme is a long-standing internet phenomenon centered on the frequent and seemingly universal unavailability of soft-serve at the fast-food giant. Originating as a shared frustration among customers, the meme portrays the machine as perpetually broken or perpetually cleaning. It gained massive cultural traction on platforms like Twitter and Reddit, eventually leading to real-world investigations and third-party tracking sites like McBroken. The meme is used to represent unreliability, the inevitability of disappointment, or any situation where a promised service is conveniently unavailable when needed most.