& the Holidays [
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How the coffee giant is extracting cheer from the holiday season By Tim Coogan / Opinions Editor
Design by Rachael Swensen / Staff Designer
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BC Gavel
Shannon West / Gavel Media
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ollege students are excited to carry a new kind of red cup in their hands this December. They’re ditching Solo—for the meantime—and picking up Starbucks. The coffee giant has made its steaming mark on the season. While the mermaid hasn’t quite wrapped her tail around spring and summer, her seasonal drinks have begun to dominate the fall and winter. Emerging from pumpkin spice season and into the wide array of winter holiday flavors, it’s vital to wake up, smell the coffee and see how Starbucks is over-roasting our holiday spirit.
December 2014
Never forget what the Pumpkin Spice Latte has done to fall. Starbucks’s PSL captained the S.S. Pumpkin and that ship isn’t sailing away anytime soon. Aside from the PSL, the pumpkin flavor has made its way into every grocery store shelf, cheap vodka and worst of all, the hearts of millions of Americans. The company has transformed fall from a season about watching football and pretending to care about foliage, to a season about consuming artificial “pumpkin” flavor. Nothing even tastes like pumpkin: it’s all cinnamon, and it’s all a lie. If action isn’t taken soon, Starbucks will ruin the Christmas season, like it has ruined autumn, with its new Fruit Cake Latte. The Starbucks red cup campaign has already invaded social media. It’s a way for people to express that it’s Christmas season, and that they’re enjoying it with a freakin’ Gingerbread Latte. With all the winter symbols, the red cup can’t be the primary way that people enjoy the season. Just like relying on red solo cups to enjoy college, focusing your holiday cheer on the Starbucks red cup is a superficial way to experience winter. It’s ridiculous to let a piece of cardboard become a cultural icon. A current social media contest run by Starbucks encourages people to post a picture of their red cup that celebrates its “beauty and magic.” Beauty and magic? For a disposable coffee cup that contains an overpriced drink? It’s possible to see God in all things, sure, but trying to encapsulate the meaning of a season into a cup? That makes the time of year as cheap and disposable as the red cup itself. No one should suffer through burnt Dean’s Beans, and no one can tell you how to spend your money, but no self
respecting person would ever actively #redcup. Instagramming a picture of a red cup demonstrates one’s willingness to be a corporate pawn. It’s surrender of your soul as free advertising for the company. The hashtag doesn’t portray a superior “bougie” status, it suggests the level of ignorance that is necessary to pay five dollars for foamy syrup and milk. It’s difficult for people to speak out against the seasonal drink crisis that’s happening. People get defensive and call out “Pumpkin Spice Grinch” or “Peppermint Mocha Scrooge.” They claim that if you don’t like a Caramel Brulée Latte, then your soul must be as black as you like your coffee. But it’s this fear of criticism that has appeased the coffee giant into conquering all of the holiday season. People should be allowed to speak out against seasonal drinks. If we can’t, then all of the other aspects of the holiday season will drown in a sugary sea of peppermint extract and latte foam. November and December are about snow, overplaying “All I Want for Christmas is You” and spending time with loved ones. Binge drinking peppermint mochas or eggnog lattes extracts the true sweetness from the seasons. Just like the flavors within the red cup, they are artificial means to enjoy winter and fall. I don’t want a lot for Christmas, but there is just one thing I need: people need to calm down with the PSLs and red cups. Let’s take back the holiday season before the Starbucks mermaid replaces Santa Claus and starts leaving lattes under the Christmas tree. If you do choose to drink from a red cup this holiday season, please do so responsibly.
OPINIONS
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