'Ronald McWeevil': Town's Statue in Front of McDonald's Terrifies Internet

By Alice Gibbs On 4/4/22 at 6:09 AM EDT

On the Internet Viral Reddit Pictures McDonald's

The car park outside of a McDonald's restaurant in Enterprise, Alabama has captured viral attention online after a picture of an unusual statue was shared on Reddit.

User lefthanddisc posted the image of the statue on the popular subreddit r/oddlyterrifying with the caption: "The Ronald McDonald statue in front of the McDonald's in my town."

With more than 34,000 upvotes since it was posted on Friday, the picture of the McDonald's icon with a twist has shocked and amused the internet.

Redditors expressed their confusion, one user writing: "I am not lovin' it," while another joked: "Didn't the Men In Black kill this thing?"

The unusual statue, "Ronald McWeevil," is part of Enterprise's Weevil Way community art project.

The 26th weevil to be unveiled in the town, it was first seen on March 31.

A website for the community project explains: "Boll Weevils are once again invading Enterprise—however this time, they won't be destroying our crops or ruining the local community. As a collaborative community art project in Enterprise, Weevil statues of reinforced fiberglass are decorated in various ways, selected by the statues' sponsors, and placed at various outdoor locations around the city."

Enterprise has a long history with the boll weevil, a beetle that feeds on cotton and flowers. The weevil made its way to the U.S. from Mexico in the late 1800s, destroying wide fields of cotton and is said to have cost the industry more than $23 billion in losses.

But Enterprise local H.M. Sessions—a seed broker in the local area—acted to help diversify the town's crops, bringing peanut seeds to the area which quickly helped farmers bounce back from the weevil's destruction. By 1919, as the boll weevil was destroying crops around the U.S., Enterprise became the largest producer of peanuts in the country. Alongside peanuts, farmers also added potatoes, sugar cane and tobacco to their crops. Today, local residents still credit the boll weevil for helping them to diversify their output and for bringing the town prosperity.

Today, the boll weevil has been eradicated in the U.S. following a mass effort around the country by the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). But the local art project is ensuring the legacy of the beetle lives on—with 26 stand-out weevil art sculptures around Enterprise, including Pillbert Weevil at the Bryan Pharmacy and even Mayor Weevil at Enterprise City Hall.

Despite the story behind the statue, Redditors were still unsure about the new "McWeevil."

One user commented: "Are you in hell?" while another joked: "This should straight up be illegal. Terrifying."

The poster, Reddit user lefthanddisc told Newsweek: "It's crazy that it went viral, I never expected it to blow up like it did. I just posted it because I thought it was scary!"

Newsweek has reached out to the team behind www.weevilway.com for comment.