24 September 2007

Coffee as an accessory; the coffee cult of personality

the sun will rise and set on the land of Venti Java Mint Chip Frappuccinos



















I'm not 16 anymore; I'm not raging against the machine. I can appreciate / understand Starbucks turning coffee into a cult of personality and making bank doing it; simple genius. Don't hate on it just because you didn't think of it first... and Peet's did!

Starbucks took the quasi-intellectual sweater vest granola poetry coffee haus and turned it into an absolute necessity; a brand now tightly woven into modern lexicon of assumed and disposable decadence.

I just think its insane people wait on line for coffee; LONG lines, at 9 AM, they wait and the coffee isn't really all that great.

The coffee and the quality of the coffee itself has been eclipsed by Starbucks itself and their manufactured Starbucks cult of personality.

I'd bet 8 out of 10 people in the city wouldn't drink Starbucks if it came in an indecipherable paper cup; its not the coffee they love, its the ritual; the distinction; the status; the elite. It has gotta be as many parts that bullshit as it is the coffee itself.

People walk around NURSING these iced coffee drinks because they are fucking accessories; they chew on those green straws like babies gumming their bottle nipples.


Is this Brandenburg Gate? Why no, its the Starbucks Headquarters in Seattle... look at those evil mermaid eyes in the sky. Creepy!

Starbucks, in its unimaginable perspicacity, has turned coffee into the hot new handbag; the new dress; the hot new shoes; its coffee as an accessory, not simply a beverage.

You roam the streets of our fair city with that Seattle green mermaid emblem and it means you're DOWN with New York; you're DOWN with the coffee cult of personality; you KNOW whats up and you can AFFORD it; basically, you've arrived and you've GOT IT LIKE THAT.




Stalin!

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