Here's the thing. I don't usually go to Starbucks. I'm a snotty liberal Portland supporter of independent coffee shops - plus I just usually like the atmosphere better. But I had a gift card - somebody gave it to me for the holidays, so the Man had already been paid, so to speak, plus I'm far more likely to use it here in Walla Walla than back in Portland, where I go to specific coffee shops not only for the principles and the atmosphere, but for social reasons as well.
I haven't spent much time studying in coffee shops this semester, but last year I frequented Coffee Perk, the indie shop around the corner, and spent several days in a week there admiring the regularity of its customers. Coffee shops, more than almost any other business model, are designed to have regulars. Everybody needs their daily dose, right? and add in the perk of employees who can learn what your specific pleasure is, and the repeated and ever increasing odds of running into people you know - and the coffee shop regular is a phenomenon that makes perfect sense.
And like all things, this business model was just begging to be commodified. Enter: Starbucks. For a small, independent venture that started in Seattle not all that long ago, it's amazing to me just how quickly Starbucks has become the Man. There's something undeniably eerie about walking into identical Starbucks, one in Houston, Texas, the other in Walla Walla, Washington. Decor: identical. Menu: identical. Layout: not that different.
Starbucks, not unlike other (mostly West Coast) outfits, has begun the process of homogenizing what was once independent, individual, and quasi-countercultural. This is the irony of the "type" that belongs (not inaccurately) to Seattle, Portland, San Francisco.
So, courtesy of the blog Stuff White People Like, comes the anti-Starbucks man, who is, ironically, he from whom the concept of Starbucks initially sprang (sprung?). College students sit and study with laptops bearing cynical, sarcastically political stickers. A twenty-something yuppie couple sit and compare notes on their busily professional lives. He narrowly avoids suspicion by finally allowing her to check his datebook. Men and women, running the gamut from suits to sweatpants enter, order, and exit with an air of routine.Coffee shops are a unique stop in people's lives - a space that is a strange mix of (expensive) fast food joint and living room. I will spend a relatively comfortable and productive afternoon here with my homework and my friends, but I will also have spent nearly $10 on coffee and pumpkin bread. So far, I've recognized at least three people from my time here yesterday afternoon. I wonder if they are regulars, or, like me, just short-term repeat players. Camped out at my table in the corner, I am both content and wondering why I can't just do this in my own kitchen. The coffee's cheaper.
