After the backlash surrounding Starbucks’ holiday cup from last year, which featured no holiday or Christmasy imagery, patrons are freaking out again over what many thought was the new 2016 design. Being called out as an attack against Christmas, and by extension, Christian tradition. Do people really have nothing better to complain about?
First and foremost, the whole ‘attack on Christmas thing is a bunch of garbage. Starbucks has never identified as a Christian company, nor has it ever endorsed Christian values as such. Therefore, the notion that changing the colour of the holiday cup is some affront directed at Christmas is ridiculous. We live in an age where political correctness is sometimes blown out of proportion, and given the history of the Starbucks holiday cup, even bringing it into the conversation is a laughably radical response. All previous holiday cup designs have only included generic holiday symbols and the company has never made any reference to Christmas in relation to the cup.
I can, however, understand a small amount of frustration surrounding the change of colour due to a change in Starbucks tradition. If you’re a faithful Starbucks customer who looks forwards to the iconic red cups every holiday season, sure, a small groan is perfectly acceptable. Just don’t take to social media and start making unsolicited comments that no one really wants to see.
The best part of this story in my opinion is that, get this, the green cup isn’t even the holiday cup, and yet, people are still freaking out over it. The green cup, which features “a mosaic of more than a hundred people drawn in one continuous stroke,” was released as a sort of pre-election cup down in the States, what with all of the political and social division going on down there right now. In a recent press release (that you can read in full here) the cup’s purpose was to, “represent the connections Starbucks has as a community with its partners (employees) and customers. […] Starbucks wanted to create a symbol of unity as a reminder of our shared values, and the need to be good to each other.” Never was it called the holiday design or was the much-anticipated holiday cup even mentioned. Images of the boxes supposedly containing the real holiday cup have cropped up over social media, even with one apparently too-curious employee possible leaking a pic of this year’s red (joy to the world) cups, which will enter into circulation on November 10th.
Overall, all of this controversy seems to nothing but a big misunderstanding that was blown out of proportion by people with nothing better to do than to complain over something completely inconsequential. To all of the disgruntled Starbucks customers out there, if the green cup seriously bothers you enough for you to rant and rave about it, it’s time to revive #firstworldproblems because you clearly have no bigger issues in your life or that you can observe in the world around you to devote your energy to.