All weekend, I assumed people were up in arms over the new red Starbucks cups because they felt the coffee company was jumping the gun on the holidays.
Capitalism is great and all, but give people a second to breathe before you exploit the most wonderful time of the year.
Oddly enough, it wasn't the timing of the cups that had people pissed online. It was the lack of Christianity on the cups.
The match that lit this week's dumbest fire appears to be a Facebook video by evangelist and possibly fabricated personality Joshua Feuerstein.
Starbucks REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus ... SO I PRANKED THEM ... and they HATE IT!!!! #shareUse #MERRYCHRISTMASSTARBUCKSFollow --> Joshua Feuerstein Posted by Joshua Feuerstein on Thursday, November 5, 2015
The Arizona resident claimed Starbucks “REMOVED CHRISTMAS from their cups because they hate Jesus.”
According to the video, when asked for his name by the barista, Feuerstein said his name was “Merry Christmas.”
In the video, he said,
So guess what, Starbucks? I tricked you into putting Merry Christmas on your cup.
BLADDOWWW!!! TAKE THAT, STARBUCKS BARISTA WHO IS JUST TRYING TO MAKE IT TO THE END OF HIS OR HER SHIFT AND DOESN'T CARE IF YOUR NAME IS DR. ARTHUR BUTTHOLE.
*Waves gun around (yes, Feuerstein literally does this)*
In an effort to ignore real issues threatening the world, the environment and our fellow man, people, or as Feuerstein would say "great Americans and Christians," condemned the red cups as an assault on Christianity.
Twitter was a-burnin' with the passion of Christ's angriest devotees.
Sane Christians realized their faith and their coffee addictions existed independently.
While Starbucks still sells Christmas Blend coffee, Cosmopolitan reported cups of the past few holiday seasons featured pine trees, snowflakes, birds and other non-Christian-specific winter imagery.
Starbucks' vice president of design and content, Jeffrey Fields, previously claimed the 2015 cups would lack spiritual specificity in favor of “a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.”
The wry people among us are, as expected, poking fun at the cup crusaders.
Regardless of how pointless many viewers think Feuerstein's efforts are to "start a movement" against Starbucks, I did my part and lent a supportive comment to the cause.
Only time will tell if this fight can be won.
Citations: The Reason Some People Are Really Upset About Starbucks Holiday Red Cups (Cosmopolitan)
