The controversial history of the annual Starbucks vacation cup

It's November, which means that Starbucks has officially unveiled this year's "holiday mugs" – a range of four festive disposable options (but not too much !!) and a red-colored reusable mug.

Here they are.

Starbucks

Will people be angry? Discussing.

As stated in the press release for the occasion, the four cup models are intended to capture the two decades of creation of the Holiday Cup Starbucks, introduced for the first time in 1997. In the spirit of nostalgia, the company " cut pieces of Starbucks holiday cups this year, adding 'doses of vintage colors and patterns … and reinterpreted them with a graphic talent, and a dash [of] glitters and shines. "

The argyle green star cut – "Stargyle" – alludes to the illustration of "a couple reaching out to place a star at the top of a Christmas tree from Christmas Blend 1999". The "Stripes" cup is meant to evoke with taste the controversial "Red Cup", while also referring to the sealed seam that runs along the back of the Starbucks coffee bags.

The Flora version features holly-esque "ripe coffee cherries", also featured in the 2013 and 2017 holiday cups, and "Espresso Houndstooth" in red and white has something to do with the Christmas Blend Espresso Roast coffee The brand is dark and rich, as is the houndstooth pattern, which is also seasonal, as it looks like flames. (I am paraphrasing here.)

They are good cups! In fact, critics of the refinery cut29 considered them "the best we've seen in years." They taste very good, in a very safe way: pleasantly abstract; very Christmas, but without a lot of the heavier Christmas iconography – they are ripe coffee cherries, agree? – and evoking simpler times, like 1997.

The real noticeable thing here is not these particular mugs themselves; it's that the Starbucks holiday mug has become so full of culture that it's a story. And that bears witness to a strange fact of modern life: Starbucks is no longer simply a coffee chain. It has become – improbably, and at least partially by accident, a barometer of our national values.

Since at least 2015, the Starbucks holiday mug has become a battleground in a one-sided fight against American values.

For the first 18 years, the holiday cups featured what the brand called "season symbols," including holly, snowflakes, stockings / ice skates, reindeer, Christmas trees, lights Christmas ornaments, Christmas ornaments and doves. With the exception of the first two years, all cuts were in shades of red.

But in 2015, the brand launched a shaded two-tone mug – the top was "red poppy", to turn into a more moving "cranberry" – with no seasonal symbol. "In the past, we had told stories with our holiday mug designs," said Jeffrey Fields, vice president of design and content for Starbucks, in this year's cup statement. "This year, we wanted to start the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all our stories."

We can call it an ideological decision, or simply a business decision: Starbucks knows who its audience is and knows that their audience is becoming more diverse.

Getty Images

In response to this minimalist cut, the conservative Christian Internet evangelist Joshua Feuerstein launched a counter-war against Starbucks, defeating what he saw as their "cup-based Christmas war."

In a video titled "Starbucks took Christmas out of their mugs because they hated Jesus … so I announced them … and they hate him !!!!" he presented his complaint. "Do you realize that Starbucks wanted to take Christ and Christmas out of their new mugs? That's why they are simply red. In fact, do you realize that Starbucks is not allowed to say "Merry Christmas" to customers? "(The joke was that he had told a barista that he was calling" Merry Christmas, "so that they had to write it on the goblet.)

It should be noted here that although the 2015 Cup is much smaller than previous incarnations, no Starbucks Cup has ever featured Jesus. In addition, the cup was shaded.

As of the start of the New York Times Cup in 2017, the video has been viewed more than 17 million times.

Other conservatives soon magnified Feuerstein's feelings. Donald Trump, then a long-time presidential candidate, used goblets as an example of the so-called "Christmas War," a battle that would have raged since the Puritans banned party celebrations in the 17th century. took off in 2005 when Fox News promoted a book in which he alleges what the New York Times describes as a "liberal holiday antagonism".

This mainly takes the form of advocacy for a more inclusive society that recognizes both the separation of church and state and the reality of the existence of non-Christian Americans . For some conservatives, however, the phrase has become a shortcut for deep concerns about a changing country.

In other words: the cup was a problem that Trump hoped to activate his base. "I have one of the most titled Starbucks in Trump Tower. Maybe we should boycott Starbucks? ", He suggested at a rally held in November 2015 in Illinois. "I do not know, seriously, I do not care, it's the end of the lease, but who cares?" Is care about this mug?

As Vox's Alex Abad-Santos wrote, the cup has become a source of indignation largely because performative outrage is succeeding on the Internet. "On social media, scream about what we do not "We define as much as the things we love," he said, pointing out that the controversy surrounding the Red Cup had unfortunately had the effect of crushing all Christians – a large and diverse group, most of whom were not offended by the comparative religiosity of Starbucks cups – in a monolith with Feuerstein.

Starbucks quickly issued a statement explaining that the cut was based on simplicity and not on suppressing the existence of Christmas. "Starbucks has become a shrine during the holidays," Fields said in a statement. Although he did not mention Feuerstein's concerns, he took this opportunity to affirm that "the creation of a culture of belonging, inclusion and diversity fundamental values ​​of Starbucks. "

(Despite howls of indignation, this year's sales were good, suggesting that anger was primarily for the show – or that angry people did not buy Starbucks at first.)

The following year, the company's holiday offer included 13 red and white cups designed by customers: 13 women from six countries. "We hope this year's red mug designs express the shared spirit of the holidays as our customers have said," Starbucks' marketing director said in a statement.

And who could be crazy? It was just some extremely artistic women from around the world who shared their personal vision of the party. (Feuerstein, in this case, was also much happier with these cups, taking them as proof that both Christmas and the country had been "saved".)

People keep getting excited for the Starbucks cups of the holidays!

But the calm was not going to last: in 2017, the Starbucks tumbler became again an object of controversy, even though it was unequivocally the Christmas party, with a Christmas tree and a pile of gifts (Christmas) and (Christmas) decorations. It was supposed to be an interactive tumbler – the goblet promotional video encouraged customers to draw there, like an inconveniently shaped adult coloring book.

The problem was there: the cup also had two arms holding hands, and it was unclear from the image which sex belonged to the body. It seemed possible that the hands were, to use BuzzFeed's delighted words, "definitely gay, is not it?"

Once BuzzFeed drew public attention to the issue, which was already circulating on social media, some critics of Starbucks were quick to take over the torch they had temporarily abandoned, suggesting that cuts promote a "gay agenda".

The reaction was much more moderate this time – with the exception of a few people on social networks, it's hard to know how many people were really unhappy. (Even the conservative website The Blaze noted that there were more people mocking the indignation than actual indignation.) Be that as it may, it was a news event, mainly because it corresponded to a well-established story that put Starbucks back at the center of the wars of culture.

It's not a coincidence that it happened at Starbucks

The Starbucks brand has become synonymous with a certain type of Liberal who lives in a city, drives a Volvo and has $ 5 to spend on slats. On the breakfast-focused Extra Crispy website, Hanson O'Haver analyzes how the Liberals and Starbucks relate to each other. "Of course, the coffee culture has long been associated with Europe, the most liberal country," he said, noting that even though the drinks are not necessarily continental, the menu "offers a profusion of strange and funny words. "

He also pointed to the coastal roots of the Seattle-based channel: "For some conservatives, Starbucks is a force of liberal imperialism, invading their cities, misspelling their names and suggesting they are talking about diversity."

And in some ways, this is not totally out of the realm, even though Starbucks' attempts to create a coffee-centered and race-oriented dialogue have not succeeded. Former CEO Howard Schultz did not hesitate to talk about politics. On the controversy surrounding the 2016 Cup, Maura Judkis of the Washington Post described Schultz's more candid political moments:

In 2013, he asked customers not to bring firearms into his stores, even in states where "carry open" is allowed. He launched "Race Together", a largely fictitious attempt to start a conversation about running in stores. He approved Hillary Clinton as President. And just before the election, Starbucks released a green cup with an illustration of more than 100 people drawn with a continuous line – "a symbol of unity reminiscent of our common values ​​and the need to be good to each other." to others, "Schultz. said in a press release. People thought it was the holiday cup and a mass freakout ensued. Schultz, by the way, was raised Jewish.

In response to Trump's travel ban in 2017, Schultz announced plans to hire 10,000 refugees over five years in the 75 countries in which the company operates. After a Philadelphia Starbucks employee called the police for two black men for not doing anything, Schultz said he was "ashamed" and "embarrassed" by the incident and that the company has set up a training program on racial prejudice one afternoon. (The question of whether such programs have an effect is a separate issue.)

As Judkis notes, people might be angry at many other companies with left-wing CEOs, but Starbucks is particularly angry – partly because we have a habit of getting angry at Starbucks. "The set is almost ready, not only for consumers, but also for the media, but perhaps more than other brands," said Derek Rucker, professor of marketing at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management. University. And as the company has grown beyond the coast, it has had to deal with an increasingly diverse clientele on the political front.

So, if people are crazy about a holiday-themed paper cup of coffee, it makes sense that this is a paper cup on the theme of a Starbucks vacation.

Why do we care what Starbucks does with its holiday paper coffee mugs to get started?

As Miranda Popkey pointed out to Extra Crispy, Feuerstein did not call for a boycott of Starbucks; he called for a "movement". It's revealing. "These events consider the coffee chain as a product and a business, but as a kind of public forum," she wrote.

And they are not mistaken, exactly. Starbucks worked very hard to pose as "third place". In Starbucks' ideal worldview, there are three places in your life: home, work and Starbucks. Of these, only Starbucks is a public space. "In the 19th century, townspeople gathered around the barrel of biscuits," wrote Popkey. "On the 20th, office workers gathered to the water cooler; at 21, we check our phones online at Starbucks. "

The size and omnipresence of Starbucks – in 2017, there were 13,930 Starbucks establishments in the United States – seem to somehow representative of our collective societal values. So, when our incorporated moral barometer makes a change, it seems useful to understand not only the identity of Starbucks, but also who we are as Americans. This only confirms Starbucks' incredible success: it's more than a public forum; it is the site of our national identity.

The problem is that we can not decide what this identity is. As the New York Times pointed out, it's probably not a coincidence that the hubbub of the initial red cup bubbled during the 2016 presidential campaign, as "political and social tensions intensified in many areas. of American life ".

According to this logic, Starbucks should prepare; it's not as if the "political and social tensions" had subsided since the 2016 elections. But if this year's Christmas haircuts had only been released one day, people seem so far relatively not worried about them.

Maybe the fury of the holiday cut has gone out. Or perhaps, more sadly, the anger formerly directed against the Starbucks goblets is manifesting itself, at a frantic pace, in every other area of ​​American existence.