The Unemployed Writer

It’s hard not to notice the general backlash against Starbucks in recent months. Not only has the company’s stock plummeted; everyone and their mother offers coffee of some sort now and their ads are almost solely designed around bashing the “snobby” attitude of people who still get their over-caffeinated drinks from the Seattle Espressorati.

Companies like Dunkin Donuts and McDonalds are trying to shame people into drinking their coffee by making them feel bad about going to an uppity, expensive coffee house like Starbucks. It’s genius marketing, but it’s not fair marketing, and it kind of annoys me.

First of all, millions of people buy coffee at Starbucks and they don’t do it because they think they’re better than other people; they just want some caffeine. And yet, corporations are hell bent on reminding us again and again that there are two very different classes of people who absolutely cannot coincide and it’s generally a very bad thing to be in the upper class of those people.

First of all, this kind of black and white division is BS - sure there’s an economic divide, but that does not mean there’s a strict intellectual divide. Lower and middle class people can be incredibly intelligent and vice versa. To suggest, as Dunkin Donuts does in its ads that people are confused and overwhelmed by the “upper class” mentality of Starbucks and other coffee houses is downright insulting to the intelligence of every American. Do we really have to keep pretending that other languages and countries are too hard for us to wrap our brains around. We’re the only major nation in the world that still thinks we’re too good to learn other languages or accept other cultures; it doesn’t make things any better when irresponsible companies try to use this mentality to their advantage and guilt people into buying their product instead (I’m speaking of the Dunkin ads making fun of the Italian and French used on many coffee shop menus).

But, I’m not quite as annoyed at Dunkin Donuts as I am at McDonald’s. At least Dunkin’s ads try to be humorous; I don’t think I’ve ever seen a humorous McDonald’s ad. Their recent advertising campaign for lattes basically has a pair of stereotypical yuppy coffee drinkers enjoying their coffee when one says “McDonald’s now has lattes”. They both then go off about how much they hate being yuppies and start flouting just how dumb they are. “I don’t know where Paraguay is”….”Paraguay?” It’s insulting and demeaning, and if anyone is actually this insecure about their place in the world; well they deserve to drink a crappy cup of McDonald’s coffee.

Are we supposed to believe that the entire Starbucks customer base is made up of stuck up yuppies who are really a bunch of stereotypical men and women who couldn’t find the capital of their own state on a map and would rather watch football and read gossip mags than read a book and listen to jazz? So, in reality they are all just waiting to break free of their pretentious shells and rush off to…McDonald’s. Because I’m sure McDonald’s has some of the best coffee around.

And of course, their burgers are the best around. And lest your friends are watching and label you as a yuppy; if you go to a real restaurant and pay more than $5 for a burger, you are clearly too intelligent to exist in this close minded, self-devouring world. How dare you realize just how awful McDonald’s is…you must be Anti-American.