Starbucks, to me at least, represents everything I both am and wish i wasn't. Essentially, Starbucks seems to be this horrible sticky fondue of young/hip/urban/professional/yupee/stereotype people who all want to get together, "chillax" and drink rubbish coffee with pretentious names. I seem to end up in there a lot.
Once upon a time a read a line in a book that said "always make it easy for people to give you money". I don't want to sound like the heartless capitalist pig that I am, but Starbucks to me is the epitome of this maxim. Everything under one roof. You can get Wifi in there, so you can do your business and twitter or whatever while you drink crap coffee. You can buy a paper. You can buy festive gifts and other trash to lavish on people you supposedly care about but not enough that you'd actually go out and hunt for a gift in stores, you got them a mug with Starbucks emblazoned on it so they can get discount refills on their morning commute. You can buy yourself some music with your coffee, and get that same annoying faux-jazz rubbish in your house. But get this, not content with rubbish faux-jazz, Starbucks has now strong armed a bunch of people you've actually heard of into having their music only available from Starbucks. What's that Sonic Youth, you got a bunch of money and free Mocha Frappa-Crappa-Venti-Corporato-Wannabe-achinos for life for doing a Starbucks compilation? And all you had to trade in was your counter culture authenticity and any vestige of self respect and dignity? WHAT A DEAL!
That said, i find Starbucks a very relaxing place. Everything in there is designed to take the edge off, from the faux-jazz to the reassuring brand names and catch phrases, every little bite size chunk is designed to let you know that hey, you're in a Starbucks, but it's alright. Bombs may fall, buildings collapse and global woes continue unabated, but that's okay because you can get soy milk for an extra dollar.
I'm on the Internet a lot, and i find being able to have a hot drink while i check my daily mail (hello mum) quite nice. I have my coffee black with two brown sugars, and i can ask for that without resorting to silly words that don't really mean what they say (Grande, I'm looking at you. Since when did 'Big' or 'Large' mean 'Medium'? Guess i was sick that day)
But most of all, i like the fact that i have never been frowned at by a coffee maker in there. Seriously, I'm never in trouble, I'm never there at a bad time, and I've never had a bad word said to me. I don't give a fudge if that's happened to you, it's never happened to me and that's what matters. You're all jealous of them, because they've taken a simple concept like filling your mug with brown dishwater and made it a global success. They're like McDonald's. I bet you don't like their food massively, but you know who they are and you've been there before.
Money makes the world go round. Coffee makes the wheels turn faster
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