The other morning I was walking to class when I got a notification on my phone that my roommate had sent me a snapchat. Confusion filled my head as I looked at the picture of my roommate holding up her red Starbucks cup with the caption "Please don't hate me." I was busy so I didn't reply but the eight-second photo remained in the back of my head for a while. I couldn't figure out what prompted her to say that; Did she borrow something of mine? Did she break something? Was that snapchat even supposed to go to me? I had no idea.
It wasn't until I was sitting in my kitchen later that night, scrolling though my Facebook timeline, that I finally figured out what her snapchat meant. I came across a "Starbucks Christmas Cup Controversy" article and obviously, Starbucks being just about my favorite place ever, I read it. For those who haven't heard about this whole deal, basically a former pastor, Joshua Feuerstein, started a huge movement that criticizes Starbuck’s new holiday cups. He claims that the minimalistic solid red design, as opposed to past designs that featured symbols such as snowflakes and reindeer, is taking the “Christ” out of Christmas. He has even gone as far as to say Starbucks “hates Jesus” and it’s unbelievable how much support this is getting. When asked by Starbuck’s baristas what their name is, supporters of this movement are answering “Merry Christmas” as a way to put Christmas back on their cups. Pretty extreme if you ask me.
Anyway, it dawned on me that my roommate sent me that snapchat because I consider myself religious. She was joking, obviously she knew I didn’t care (or even know) about the design of a cup or think it had anything to do with “hating Jesus.” So, even though she meant no harm by the snapchat it still made me wonder if there were some people who assumed that just because I identify myself as Christian, that I too hated Starbuck’s new cups. Because in all honesty I could care less, a single-use cup should not be a defining icon for your religion anyway.
Now I know this might just sound redundant as there have already been so many articles addressing this whole fiasco, but the point I am trying to get to is that this situation is applicable to college as well. As we have seen time and time again, it is too easy for one person to hurt the reputation of an entire group. This is especially common within different sororities and fraternities. On campus and in tight-knit Greek life like Cal Poly’s, drama can spread like wildfire. The use of social media makes this even worse with outlets like Yik-Yak, Snapchat, Groupme, and hidden Facebook groups. One misinterpreted or extreme message can give off the wrong idea about an entire house. This is so unfortunate because oftentimes these stigmas that result from one person don’t go away, or at least not easily.
Basically what I'm trying to say here is that there is a valuable lesson to be learned from this whole Starbucks cup ordeal. We have to remember that we represent people other than ourselves, whether that is our group of friends, our house, or our awesome school. Everything we say can be attributed back to these organizations and we should be ever so cautious about that. Never let yourself be the one "bad cup" that ruins the whole bunch.
