Calm Down, It's Just a Cup

Amongst all of the tragedies we’ve experienced this year, one stands above all as the single-handed worst. Referred to as the “Red Massacre” by some critics, this horrendous instance of human suffering is an example of all that’s wrong in the world today. And no, I’m not talking about ISIS, or the Syrian refugee crisis, or even the re-emergence of a video of Elmo being blown to bits by a jet engine. No, this is much, much worse, and it’s a problem that has deeply affected and scarred each and every person on the planet.Yes, I’m talking about the Starbucks red cup controversy.Now, calling it a “controversy” may be a bit of an overstatement, as in my own scope of view, I haven’t seen or heard a single person complain about the cup. But for those of you who haven’t been watching the news in past months, I’ll give you a little bit of background.This year, as part of their annual holiday promotional sales, Starbucks unveiled a new, seasonal line of products, bringing to the table new holiday and winter-themed flavors and introducing a new system for a limited time where if you buy a drink, you get another free, so you can share the ‘yuletide spirit’ with your friends and loved ones. And what better way to sell these new drinks than to put them in an all-new, minimalist holiday-themed cup? It was with this marketing strategy in mind that Starbucks created what would ultimately become one of the most media-covered events of the year, even more so than it’s competitor for the weekend (a news story about SeaWorld closing their orca whale exhibits).The design was truly simplistic: A red cup. Red, as those of us alive long enough to remember Christmas will know, is one of the two Christmas colors, along with green. It’s the color of ornaments, Rudolph’s nose and Santa’s outfit. So in the Starbucks’ marketing department, they decided, “What would be better for the season than to take that color and put it on a cup?” Hark, the red cup was born.We all know that, if something is maybe just a tiny bit slightly offensive in this day and age, we are going to hear about it, and living in the digital age, social media gives people a platform to make their thoughts and grievances available for all to see. So naturally, people found something to complain about in this seemingly harmless red cup. I don’t see any reason to dislike it; perhaps the red isn’t red enough. But for these people, these concentrated, religious subgroups, it was Armageddon when Starbucks released an ombre red Christmas cup. According to the media’s perception of them, these people believed the removal of Santa, Christmas trees, reindeers, holly and mistletoe were the first step in a systematic and highly tactical war against Christmas. Ladies and gentlemen, in my own personal and humble opinion, it’s purely ludicrous that thousands of people would go up in arms about such a banal, pointless thing that we’ll all forget about in a month.But I suppose we can’t put all the blame on the people voicing their opposition; the media definitely is at fault. And this is what the media does on a regular basis: it takes an issue that nobody cares about (e.g. the Kardashians, Gangnam Style, the Whip and Nae-Nae) and blow them completely out of proportion, so that we truly never hear the end of it. As I said, I’ve never personally seen anybody complain about the cup; as a matter of fact, I like the design! As I said before, the few people that complained about it were most likely located in highly conservative neighborhoods, and the media reported on their outrage as a representation of the entire country’s point of view.In all actuality, who the hell cares about a red cup? It absolutely does not matter what a cup of coffee looks like. Seriously, shouldn’t we be more focused on how it tastes? And on top of that, we’ve got 130 plus people dead in Paris from a terror attack, millions of people displaced in Syria from governments bombing their own civilians, and Planned Parenthoods all across the nation being terrorized by gunmen and other attackers. I think it’s about time the media stops trivializing, and I say this in the most politically correct way possible, stupid B.S., and focus on the momentous, grave situations happening all around us. But, as we all know, that will never happen. The media will always find something like this, some small, ridiculous, laughable aspect of society that one or two people get offended by, and blow it into a story of Benghazi or Watergate proportions. How would modern media look without stories like the red cup controversy? I suppose the world truly may never know.