Part history, part ethnography, part marketing theory and part coffee
memoir, Everything but the Coffee places Starbucks at the center of
the hypocrisy of the American middle class. Simon has to stretch a
great deal here, as he explores why, for a time, the American middle
class saw Starbucks is central to its identity.
Simon shows us how we really live, and it ain't pretty. There was a
time, not so long ago, Simon reminds us, that many of us wondered why
people would pay so much money for a cup of coffee--even as we were
edging closer in line to place our own order. Starbucks, writes
Simon, "had little to do with coffee, and everything to do with
style, status, identity and aspiration. ... Starbucks delivered more
than a stiff shot of caffeine. It pinpointed, packaged, and made
easily available, if only through smoke and mirrors, the things that
the broad American middle class wanted and thought it needed to make
its public and private lives better." Starbucks fed our emotional
needs for status. It became our little "self-gift," an emotional
pick-me-up. It allowed us to feel successful.
It also provided a safe, clean "third space" between home and work,
those big chairs and couches becoming our new public sphere. It
brought us exotic places and sounds, exposed us to an underground in
the safety of a cushy seat: teaching us about places where our coffee
came from, and new music and literary voices. It tried to be our
cultural guide and helped us feel good about our environmental
footprint through its green campaigns and aid to farmers, even if
Starbucks did little and we did nothing but buy coffee. It did so
consciously, purposefully manipulating our desires, hopes and
aspirations, all the while making us feel good about ordering up a
venti soy latte.
<http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/5311/our_coffee_ourselves>Link
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