--- title: The Story Behind the McDonald's Extra Cream Cheese Bagel description: Meet the man who got much more extra cream cheese than he bargained for with this bagel. canonical: https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/ author: Megan McCluskey article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2020-02-25T23:39:19.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-04-13T08:01:19.614Z og:title: The Inside Scoop Behind This Viral 'McMonstrosity' Bagel Overflowing With 'Extra Cream Cheese' og:description: "Something was amiss" og:url: https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e70060f79137b59/698a0aabb3fce30fdd0c65db/Bagel-With-Cream-Cheese.jpg?branch=production&width=478&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 478 og:image:height: 269 og:image:alt: Bagel with Cream Cheese og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: The Inside Scoop Behind This Viral 'McMonstrosity' Bagel Overflowing With 'Extra Cream Cheese' twitter:description: "Something was amiss" twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e70060f79137b59/698a0aabb3fce30fdd0c65db/Bagel-With-Cream-Cheese.jpg?branch=production&width=478&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # The Inside Scoop Behind This Viral 'McMonstrosity' Bagel Overflowing With 'Extra Cream Cheese' > Sponsored content. 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Every edition is assembled by TIME editors rather than generated automatically.  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 25, 2020 11:39 PM UTC  Bagel with cream cheese Bagel with cream cheese4kodiak—Getty Images  by [Megan McCluskey](https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/)  ## Megan McCluskey Staff Writer Feb 25, 2020 11:39 PM UTC When placing an order for a [bagel](https://time.com/5559947/bread-sliced-bagel/) with [cream cheese](https://time.com/4299455/wendys-japan-pretzel-corn-cream-cheese-burger/), most people have certain expectations for the bagel to cream cheese ratio that they’ll receive. So when one [McDonald’s](https://time.com/5756318/mcdonalds-employees-help-woman/) customer was presented with a bagel that he felt fell way outside of the cream cheese portion norm, he was compelled to share it with the world — or at least Twitter. [Bryan Passifiume](https://twitter.com/BryanPassifiume), the customer in question, tells TIME that he always orders extra cream cheese on bagels to avoid only getting a “bible page-width’s worth” of the spread, but that he knew almost immediately that there was something off about the extra cream cheese bagel he picked up from McDonald’s on his way to work at the [Toronto Sun](https://torontosun.com/) on Tuesday. “I thought something was amiss when I picked the bagel up from the counter and it felt kind of heavy,” he says. “So I went upstairs to my desk and sat down and I opened it up and it was enormous. There was literally two inches of cream cheese on it.” Passifiume then took to Twitter to share some photos of the cream cheese-loaded creation, which he dubbed the “McMonstrosity.” His tweet showcasing the overflowing cream cheese from several different angles has since been liked nearly 14,000 times. > [](https://twitter.com/BryanPassifiume/status/1232279342027329536) > [](https://twitter.com/BryanPassifiume/status/1232283736215113729) > [](https://twitter.com/BryanPassifiume/status/1232299001241882630) But, why so much? As for why he was given such an exorbitant amount of cream cheese, Passifiume says that he thinks there could be a few different explanations for the bagel preparer’s heavy hand. “I think whoever made it was either being passive-aggressive like, ‘Oh, you want extra cream cheese? I’ll give you extra cream cheese,’ or maybe they just weren’t paying attention to what they were doing,” he explains. But Passifiume says that despite having no desire to eat the bagel, he couldn’t bring himself to throw it away before leaving work on Tuesday. “It just seems like it’s part of Canadian culture now so I don’t think I’m allowed to throw it out,” he says. “At the same time, I didn’t want to be wasteful — it is a lot of cream cheese — so I wrapped it up, left it on my desk and told my coworkers that they could eat it if they were hungry. But I don’t think they’ll be interested in doing that.” > [](https://twitter.com/BryanPassifiume/status/1232381206790098944) Passifiume also says the experience won’t stop him from continuing to order extra cream cheese on his bagels. “What I plan to do tomorrow is go to the same McDonald’s, order the same thing and see what they give me,” he says. “I think I’ll just compare \[today’s bagel\] to what they give me tomorrow and go from there.” ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/"},"headline":"The Inside Scoop Behind This Viral 'McMonstrosity' Bagel Overflowing With 'Extra Cream Cheese'","datePublished":"2020-02-25T23:39:19.000Z","dateModified":"2026-04-13T08:01:19.614Z","description":"\"Something was amiss\"","url":"https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/","keywords":["Newsfeed","Food & Drink","viral","onetime","clickmonsters"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e70060f79137b59/698a0aabb3fce30fdd0c65db/Bagel-With-Cream-Cheese.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Megan McCluskey","jobTitle":"Staff Writer","url":"https://time.com/author/megan-mccluskey/"}],"articleSection":"","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blt7e70060f79137b59/698a0aabb3fce30fdd0c65db/Bagel-With-Cream-Cheese.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Bagel with Cream Cheese","caption":"Bagel with cream cheese","creditText":"4kodiak—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/tag/time-section-newsfeed/","name":"Newsfeed"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5790578/extra-cream-cheese-bagel-mcdonalds/","name":"The Inside Scoop Behind This Viral 'McMonstrosity' Bagel Overflowing With 'Extra Cream Cheese'"}}]}] ```