*Sniff Sniff* Smell that? Holiday season is approaching quickly! Some have started already, but it is about to be time to break out the tree as well as the rest of the holiday decorations you have. Something else that has become a norm for this part of the year is to visit a local Starbucks.
Starting in 1997, during the month of November, Starbucks trades in its regular white cups for a more festive, usually red cup. Some of the designs that were included on previous years’ cups were snowflakes, snowmen, pine trees, various slogans and words. This year, the billion- dollar company decided to roll with a two-toned ombre design. With an eye- popping red on top fading into a darker red on the bottom, the cup only bares the Starbucks logo.
“In the past, we have told stories with our holiday cups designs,” Starbucks vice president of design and content, Jeffrey Fields, said. “This year we wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”
Innocent enough, right? So what is the big deal?
Former radio and television evangelist, now social media evangelist, Joshua Feuerstein posted a Starbucks-bashing video on Nov. 5th, 2015. In the video, he claims that Starbucks did not include Christ or any mention of Christmas on the new cups due to “political correctness.” Since the release of the video, many have voiced their own opinions through social media. There has been an overwhelming amount of people that are disappointed that the topic is even trending, especially with so many other major events occurring.
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump weighed in on the red cup controversy as well, calling for a boycott of Starbucks.
The argument started by Feuerstein is off base. Starbucks never established itself as a Christian-based company, and they never at any point included images of Christ on their cups. He claims that they do not make any mention of Christmas, but in actuality they have Christmas products for sell, such as mugs, advent calendars and Christmas-themed gift cards.
Looks like Feuerstein should have done a little more research before his rant. It is ironic how he actually may have helped out the company that he was going against. The red cup controversy has done nothing but brought more attention to Starbucks. Should we even call this a controversy? It seems that we have a company that was just trying to bring some creativity into the fold and it was misinterpreted. To put a spin on the words of Rodney King, can’t we all just get along and sip the coffee?
