Pandemonium: #ItsJustACup or Starbucks Really Messed Up, You Guys
I’m going to go out on a limb here: Starbucks really messed up.
Perhaps you’ve been living under a rock over the past couple of days. For the rest of us, this has almost entirely taken over our Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and FaTwiGram feeds:
View post on imgur.comIn an utterly horrifying (or entirely uninteresting, depending on your viewpoint) turn of events, Starbucks has stricken reindeer from its traditional red cups for the holidays. And the snowflakes, the snowflakes are also gone. NOT THE SNOWFLAKES!
I’m sorry, snowflakes…
Indeed, yet another major attack among a flurry of skirmishes making up the ‘War on Christmas’.
Ah, the war. It’s just like real war, only really not at all.
Your husbands, wives, brothers, sisters, friends, family – real people fight & sacrifice their own lives in real wars.
For our safety. For our freedom. Real war.
Yet we still insist on fashioning the “war” label on every one of our petty fabricated dramas.
The War on Christmas.
The War on Marriage.
The War on Is-Glenn-Really-Dead-Oh-Man-Please-Tell-Me-He’s-Alive-Because-Oh-Look-A-Dumpster.
View post on imgur.comNo, this isn’t a “war.” It’s a distraction.
Whether it’s a distraction from real issues (global poverty, poverty in America, orphans, cancer, racism, sexism, American troops fighting wars overseas…) or from your daily weekday struggle of waiting until next Sunday’s Walking Dead episode, that’s up for you to decide (I mean, surely they’ll tell us about Glenn this time? Right?).
Here’s the deal: Starbucks is kind of awesome. You, I, and most of the civilized world has access to a Starbucks.
Open the door, walk up to the counter, and (provided we can afford their wares – another debatable point) we drink.
Oh, do we drink… Last year, 46 million Americans received a Starbucks gift card for Christmas.
1 in 7 American adults were treated to free Starbucks by some generous Christmas-ers.
The point: Starbucks messed up.
Counter-point: that’s a lot of coffee.
And, can’t we all agree when you serve that much coffee, you’re bound to upset the occasional evangelist in Arizona?
The Problem
Take a look at your own Facebook feed.
Look at all of those people lamenting how sad/disgusted/depressed/offended they are by Starbucks’ 2015 Red Cups? Look at how mad they are!
Wait…
View post on imgur.comNope, looks like they’re all posting about how silly it is to worry about Red Cups.
Score 1 for America, and score 1 for social media, friends!
Now, if we could just find the hysterical outcry from folks truly bothered by this horrible Red Cups fiasco, we could all move on with our lives.
The formula would be complete. Sort of…
Outrage -> Logical Reasoning -> World Moves On -> World Spends 15 Minutes Finding The Next Thing to Quibble Over.
So, a bit of an open loop there.
Nevertheless, focusing on the “outrage” portion.
One guy with a YouTube channel (no, OwnTheMeal is not going to link or embed the YouTube video here) gets upset. Which is fine. We’re all entitled to our emotions.
Entire world does their social medias and piles on the Yeah-I’m-Upset-Too train, but mostly the Whoa-Look-At-This-Guy-He’s-Upset-About-Something-Silly-Lets-Make-Fun-Of-Him train.
Bam. Now this story, this incomprehensibly-everywhere story, is in your face at 7 the in morning while you’re watching Good Morning America. Or the Today Show.
View post on imgur.comYeah, the Today Show.
The Solution
Look back just one more time at your social media feed.
Find the posts discussing Red Cups. These most likely fit in 1 of 2 categories:
- “Hey Everybody: I think it’s silly everyone is talking about Red Cups, so here’s my post about Red Cups.”
- “Dumb people are dumb and it’s dumb that people would be so upset about dumb stuff.”
- Seriously, there are no other categories. Just those two.
Yes, it’s unfortunate featureless Red Cups can bring about such calamity. No matter which way you look at it.
Yes, sometimes people argue over silly things. Unfortunately, some will take this opportunity to say cruel things about the people partaking in the argument. And the cycle continues.
Some still will write about people talking about people talking about Red Cups. Case in point: this post.
However.
Starbucks, again… REALLY messed up.
They could have avoided this WHOLE fiasco. The whole thing. None of this would have ever happened.
How?
Presenting:
@Starbucks Problem solved! #ItsJustACup #areyouserious pic.twitter.com/wPPvbSitMP
— Carrie Prentice (@prentice_carrie) November 10, 2015
Problem: solved.
Yup-only thing is, now everyone will have a new thing to gripe about-if you do the rainbow thing, you’re representing gay pride, & we just can’t have that, God forbid-personally, i think there should be a cup for every cause, then we can all be happy?