("War") On the Nature of Coffee, Christmas, and Collective Consumerism

Do You Feel Like Busting Up A Starbucks?

By Jason Brown

Alright.

Starbucks is purportedly waging a war on Christmas.

Their weapon of choice?

Red and green cups.

Alright.

*Cracks knuckles*

For those (lucky few) of you who aren’t already (painfully) aware, the internet is aflame with nonsensical white noise after the ironically-named Joshua Feuerstein did an internet thing that has the nauseating cinematography of a poorly-edited, six-second Vine and the bitchy subject matter of a rambling, 34-minute vlog. The fact that his post went viral almost immediately is depressing and a testament to society’s tendency to gravitate towards polarizing figures simply for the sake of their outlandishness, but that is not necessarily the topic of today’s piece/rant/column.

*Before we dive in, keep in mind that this is the same person that demonstrated a fundamental inability to both grasp the basic definition of a scientific theory, and distinguish it from its colloquial counterpart. You need only watch the first 40 seconds. Please do not feel the need to subject yourself to any more than absolutely necessary. The fact that I suffered through the entire thing (twice) does not mean you should repeat my mistakes.*

The basis for Feuerstein’s rage is twofold: first, the fact that Starbucks took “Christ and Christmas off of [sic] their brand new cups.” The problem with this claim is that no Starbucks holiday cup has ever said “Merry Christmas,” nor have any of them referenced Jesus. The second part of his vexation, and the “trick” for which he is so proud of himself, stems from the censorship by Starbucks of its employees, specifically in regards to the phrase “Merry Christmas.”

In a refreshing turn of events transpiring on social media, baristas across the nation have come out of the woodworks on Facebook, Reddit, and countless comment sections of articles debunking this ridiculous claim. Many baristas claim their limited usage of the phrase originates not from a company-wide directive, but from a basic comprehension of the way the world works; they realize that not everyone celebrates Christmas.

Such a revelation must not have occurred to Feuerstein.

The most ironic part of the video, however, lies in Feuerstein’s attire; his hat (in both the aforementioned videos) is the same color as the new Starbucks cups, though there is no “I <3 Jesus” in sight, nor any indication that such a phrase might be present on the concealed side.

The video is laughable at best, but, unfortunately, social media does not have a habit of bringing out the best in society. Yes, Feuerstein is likely just an attention seeker looking for views, subscriptions, and his 15 minutes via social media, but much more serious than the video itself are the all-too-familiar implications accompanying the reactions. Social media’s Obnoxiously Deranged Overreaction fueled by Misinformation and Yelling—SODOMY for short (or SMODOFMY if you’re a smartass that refuses to let that kind of thing slide)—is something that can be observed time and time again. Cracked.com has a running segment strictly dedicated to false news stories and pictures over which the internet collectively lost its shit. These sensational stories or photographs, like the video dissected above, take approximately a minute of Googling to debunk, and yet, with alarming consistency, people continue to fall for them. In the Age of Information, with access to all but unlimited knowledge unlocked by a few keystrokes, our society is insistent on finding the most outlandish-sounding, mind-blowing stories, latching onto them and letting go only in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary:

-NFL executives sat in a room with Bill Belichick and destroyed evidence, but, hey, the Patriots are undefeated this season, so fuck it, #FreeBrady.

-A Republican candidate has been recorded degrading women on multiple occasions, and has made incredibly racist claims about Mexicans on national television, but you gotta love that he speaks his mind!

-A white Christian slaughters nine in a black church, another white kid massacres his English class, asking people’s religions before extinguishing their lives forever, and police are caught on camera abusing their power in a racially-charged manner, yet the word “terrorist” is reserved for Muslims.

Buying into these sensationalist claims or movements is what prevents intelligent, educated discussion from enacting any sort of change, and our society’s blatant disregard for facts just compounds the problem. Our society can’t even agree on the color of a god damn dress, and last week we were more concerned with the design of a fucking cup than a bombing in Beirut, because religion, I guess.

At the heart of the indignation with Starbucks lies the simple fact that being religious, in the most benevolent sense of the word, is simply difficult, and, as a result, we expect others to do it for us.

“If Starbucks doesn’t go overboard with Christmas, how can I feel good about buying a double-venti soy farm-to-table macchiato?”

The visceral reaction to religious institutions is essentially one of self-interest. Every year, it seems, Christmas is less about the birth of a religious figure and more about consumerism. If the biggest companies fail to satisfactorily endorse Christmas for consumers, the burden of religious observation shifts ever so slightly to their shoulders. Most Christians cannot practice their faith every day, or dedicate their lives to the study of the Bible, so they place their faith in priests and officials of the Church. When these same “model characters” rape children and embezzle money, it forces the average Christian to prove their character on their own terms, as their beloved institution has failed to deliver.

Indignation is the easiest way to concomitantly distance yourself from such atrocities with which you were just aligned and show yourself to be a quality individual. It is far easier to be outraged over indecency in others than to be decent yourself. The danger of relying on others to make yourself look good by association dates back to Martin Luther, who desperately wanted people to practice and experience religion for themselves, not depend on officials of a then-corrupt institution.

This mentality is not limited to religion, however. Clicktivism is a word that gets thrown around social media, its appeal lying in the effortlessness that it offers. A sense of accomplishment from sharing a video or signing a pledge that, in reality, accomplishes nothing discourages any real effort put towards change--Kony 2012 is the shining example. Its meteoric rise to relevance had little to do with the cause behind the campaign—though making it about kids certainly helped—and everything to do with the premise: watch and share a captivating (bullshit) 30-minute video, and gather on one night (that never actually happened). It was a chance for easy change, with minimal effort yielding a maximum feeling of reward. Social media went nuts over this sensational (there’s that word again) campaign, until the man behind the video appeared to lose his shit in a recorded public breakdown, and we learned that the infamous Kony had been irrelevant for years.

None of this is to disregard the effect social media can have on real change; the ALS Ice Bucket Challenge raised a record-shattering amount of money for a terrible disease, and while it was certainly easy, it caused genuine good. The Ice Bucket Challenge is the paradigm of benevolent viral marketing, utilizing peer pressure to promote donations and participation in what instantly became a phenomenon. The issue with this kind of marketing is that it is relatively easily imitated, not always with such good intentions in mind, and the Ice Bucket Challenge has set up the world of social media to jump on anything offering a similar structure: minimal effort, maximum feeling of reward.

There are more issues with the outrage over Starbucks’ cups, one of them being the existence of other issues, ones where minimal effort accomplishes nothing. The “there are other, more important things about which one should worry” argument offers a slippery slope, but when people are making swastikas in college bathrooms out of human shit (Lloyd!!!), maybe it’s time to curb our displaced enthusiasm. The fact that there are problems in the world does not mean that everyone is not struggling with something, nor does it invalidate said struggle; however, there are certain events that legitimately deserve our attention as members of the human race:

The alleged War on Christmas is not one of them.

The outrage isn’t warranted even granting the offended an actual event of significance (say that Starbucks displayed “Merry Christmas” in the past, but not in 2015), as other religions have been putting up with this shit for years. Judaism is by no means perfect, but you don’t see Jews posting rants and brandishing weapons because Hanukkah doesn’t get enough exposure (and it most certainly does not). Objectively, the holiday of Christmas is not even that pertinent to the values of Christian faith. Historians aren’t certain of Jesus’s exact birthday, but most say that it probably happened in the spring. Even still, the United States of America are a huge part of my life and identity, but I can’t tell you the birthdays of George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, or Benjamin Franklin, nor do we even celebrate such events in the age of holidays.

Jesus’s exploits were significantly more important than his birth, and yet Christmas is one of the two days of the year nearly all Christians attend mass. Hanukkah, on the other hand, is a story of an oppressed, outnumbered people standing up to the Romans (Christians aren’t too fond of them, if I remember correctly), and Christmas receives far more hype. Kwanzaa is a holiday borne out of a people seeking an identity, but nobody is upset with Starbucks over their lack of black cups. Christians playing the victim card when their holidays receive far more nationwide attention than those of any other religion is insane, especially considering that nothing is actually happening with Starbucks.

For those of you who are genuinely upset with Starbucks’ lack of holiday spirit (before we’ve even basted a fucking turkey or watched the Cowboys blow another Thanksgiving game, but I won’t even go there), take comfort in the fact that this past week’s Thursday Night Football matchup featured bright Christmas colors that more than make up for any imagined slights from Starbucks. Well, except for all those people who couldn’t tell the difference between the jerseys.

For any of you who (blatantly ignored my repeated, desperate pleas and) watched the entire Evolution video, uncurl yourself from the fetal position long enough to watch this. You will feel much better. I promise.

© Jason Brown 2016