Blog 8: Starbucks' Holiday Cups Criticized Once More
Unlike my other blogs, this one is not expressly about politics. I could talk about other current political issues that are taking place right now; however, this story really stood out to me.
Starbucks is under fire once more for having their holiday cups not be red with a green Christmas tree.
They came under a lot of heat on social media two years ago in 2015 when they came out with a plain red cup instead of one with a Christmas tree. I remember this like it was yesterday.
I walked into my senior AP history class and my friend Carin immediately started ranting about how terrible the Starbucks red cup was this year. She showed me that it was plain red and told me how boring that was, how much of the holiday spirit that took out of Christmas, and how she was never going to Starbucks again (or until January when the red cups disappeared). Now to put this in perspective, Carin went to Starbucks every day. I saw her come in to history pretty much every day with a Starbucks beverage in class. But she held true to her promise. She didn't come into class with Starbucks until January, when it was back to the plain white cup. After that, it seemed like she only came in with Starbucks once or twice a week.
Starbucks lost several hundred dollars in this decision to have a plain red cup two years ago from my friend. Several hundred dollars may not seem like a lot of money to a multi billion dollar company, but Carin was far from the only one. I had several other friends exactly like her in high school who all complained about the red cups that day. I saw the number of daily Starbucks drinkers shrink rapidly.
But more than this, Starbucks was under serious fire on Twitter. Hundreds of thousands of people tweeted and re-tweeted how mad they were at Starbucks. I saw thousands of hateful comments on Twitter, with no positive comments whatsoever.
This hurt the company fiscally in unprecedented ways. Of course they were able to recuperate, it is Starbucks after all, but it was undeniably a bad idea on their part.
In 2016, the red cups came out with drawings in black on them of trees and angels and other Christmasy things. Apparently this was the plan all along. Starbucks had come out with a blank red cup one year to allow people to submit their drawings in the next year and their drawings would come out on the next year's cups. It was a big PR win for Starbucks and people all but forgot the previous years cup catastrophe.
That was until last month when the new holiday cups came out. These cups were even more controversial than in 2015. They were not red. They had two supposedly lesbian girls holding hands. There was no Christmas tree nor any mention of Christ.
People lost it on social media again. Some called for the CEO of Starbucks to be fired. Some made the same pledges not to go to Starbucks any more. They said things on Twitter that you would never expect to hear in person.
I was not a huge fan of the plain red cups two years ago and I'm not a huge fan of the cups this year. However, I do not think the CEO of Starbucks should be fired. I do not think that the two people that are holding hands are lesbian or necessarily even girls. I did not post on social media about this.
People say ridiculous things on social media that they would never say in real life. People are unreasonable on social media and blow up about little things that don't really matter. Starbucks is not trying to advance the gay agenda and even if the two hands on the cup were for lesbians, it's 2017, they're not exactly out there.
Social media is a powerful tool for people if they use it right. However, in this case, it is just defaming a company's reputation and making them look foolish. The way they post about politics can have the same effect.
Starbucks is under fire once more for having their holiday cups not be red with a green Christmas tree.
They came under a lot of heat on social media two years ago in 2015 when they came out with a plain red cup instead of one with a Christmas tree. I remember this like it was yesterday.
I walked into my senior AP history class and my friend Carin immediately started ranting about how terrible the Starbucks red cup was this year. She showed me that it was plain red and told me how boring that was, how much of the holiday spirit that took out of Christmas, and how she was never going to Starbucks again (or until January when the red cups disappeared). Now to put this in perspective, Carin went to Starbucks every day. I saw her come in to history pretty much every day with a Starbucks beverage in class. But she held true to her promise. She didn't come into class with Starbucks until January, when it was back to the plain white cup. After that, it seemed like she only came in with Starbucks once or twice a week.
Starbucks lost several hundred dollars in this decision to have a plain red cup two years ago from my friend. Several hundred dollars may not seem like a lot of money to a multi billion dollar company, but Carin was far from the only one. I had several other friends exactly like her in high school who all complained about the red cups that day. I saw the number of daily Starbucks drinkers shrink rapidly.
But more than this, Starbucks was under serious fire on Twitter. Hundreds of thousands of people tweeted and re-tweeted how mad they were at Starbucks. I saw thousands of hateful comments on Twitter, with no positive comments whatsoever.
This hurt the company fiscally in unprecedented ways. Of course they were able to recuperate, it is Starbucks after all, but it was undeniably a bad idea on their part.
In 2016, the red cups came out with drawings in black on them of trees and angels and other Christmasy things. Apparently this was the plan all along. Starbucks had come out with a blank red cup one year to allow people to submit their drawings in the next year and their drawings would come out on the next year's cups. It was a big PR win for Starbucks and people all but forgot the previous years cup catastrophe.
That was until last month when the new holiday cups came out. These cups were even more controversial than in 2015. They were not red. They had two supposedly lesbian girls holding hands. There was no Christmas tree nor any mention of Christ.
People lost it on social media again. Some called for the CEO of Starbucks to be fired. Some made the same pledges not to go to Starbucks any more. They said things on Twitter that you would never expect to hear in person.
I was not a huge fan of the plain red cups two years ago and I'm not a huge fan of the cups this year. However, I do not think the CEO of Starbucks should be fired. I do not think that the two people that are holding hands are lesbian or necessarily even girls. I did not post on social media about this.
People say ridiculous things on social media that they would never say in real life. People are unreasonable on social media and blow up about little things that don't really matter. Starbucks is not trying to advance the gay agenda and even if the two hands on the cup were for lesbians, it's 2017, they're not exactly out there.
Social media is a powerful tool for people if they use it right. However, in this case, it is just defaming a company's reputation and making them look foolish. The way they post about politics can have the same effect.
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