March 28, 2024

BY DEEANNA ROLLINSdeeanna

Since 1997 Starbucks has had a different design for their holiday cups.

Last year, they had the plain red cups, which were apparently too subtlety inclusive of other religions and cultures because the cups didn’t blatantly say Merry Christmas. People were going to Starbucks and asking for “Merry F**king Christmas” on their cups in order for them to unashamedly flaunt their religion and beliefs to the world.

This year, the coffee chain is inundated with people calling themselves “Trump” and demanding to have the president-elect’s name written on their decorative paper cups. Six of the 13 designs were made by women in other countries in order to celebrate women and diversity.

They just happened to be holiday themed; one is covered in colourful strings of sketched lights, another has bare pine trees covered in snow and a third has a light, white drawing of a bird on some branches.

At first, Starbucks released a different holiday cup design. It was a green cup, with drawings of different people on the entire cup. Starbucks tweeted, “Friends, baristas, and customers drawn in one continuous line – remind us we’re all connected,” when they released the design of the cup.

But after the company received a huge backlash from the public, who said that green was an Islamic colour, and the company was supporting the “war on Christmas,” Starbucks changed their minds and went with the 13 female-designed cups instead.

These red cups may have been harmonious with president-elect Hilary Clinton, but with Donald Trump being the future president of the U.S., Starbucks’ obvious support of Clinton had the company swamped by an overwhelming number of irate Trump supporting customers.

A trend emerged after a Miami man asked a barista to write “Trump” on his cup and the barista refused; the customer called the act anti-white discrimination.

Soon there was a TrumpCup hashtag, courtesy of famous Twitter user Baked Alaska, who got a hold of the footage and tweeted out, “Starbucks called the cops on this guy for wanting Trump on his cup, everyone go get a #TrumpCup now! This is a movement.”

Just in case any of you were wondering, no, this is not a joke. People are actually trying to protest what a cup looks like. First it was the colour, now it’s the artists. What’s next? The Starbucks logo itself?

It’s getting out of hand. Why can’t people just agree to disagree? Why can’t we, as a society, stop blowing everything out of proportion?

When I go to Starbucks, I order my drink, I drink it, and then I throw the cup out. If I was as “anti-Starbucks red cups” as some of these people are, I would just stop going to Starbucks. If this cup is the worst thing in your world right now, you should go home and make your own hot cocoa, and sit beside your stunningly bright Christmas tree.

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