Starbucks Under Fire Again... Over a Cookie

Starbucks just can’t catch a break this holiday season. First it was the red cup controversy. Now the internet is up in arms about a cookie.

That’s right. A cookie.

When I look at this cookie, I see a polar bear wearing a scarf. When others see this cookie, they see something totally different and macabre.

“Ok so Starbucks gets rid of their Christmas cups then they slit polar bear throats on their cookies?” — @davinreader

“I gotta love Starbucks new cookies. A polar bear with it’s throat slit? That’s a holiday you don’t forget.” – @evil_avatar

“Adorable polar bear holiday cookies from #Starbucks? Or a #crimescene because they’ve all had their throats cut?” – @byDougRich

Apparently when some people see the Rorschach red lines on the cookie, they see it as a polar bear that had its throat slit and now there’s blood running down its neck.

Nothing says “happy holidays!” quite like the marketing of a brutally murdered animal in the shape of a cookie, amiright? Especially when that snack item hasn’t appeared in Starbucks stores since December 2010.

*record scratch*

You read that right. According to a statement from Starbucks, “In December of 2010 we served smiling polar bear cookies in cozy scarves. They are just one example of our tradition to offer holiday cookies that are festive and delicious. This year you can find snowmen cookies and gingerbread people in holiday sweaters.”

So now the internet isn’t just losing their shit about a stupid cookie, they’re losing their shit about something that happened five years ago.

Lighten up, internet, and do your damn homework.

Almost everyone these days has access to all the information in the world and a very large platform on which to use a very big microphone to make their thoughts and opinions heard. Instead of using these powers for good, for drawing attention to real problems we’re all facing, entirely too many people are using these gifts from the social media gods to spout off about shit that doesn’t matter. In ten years, no one will care about the red cups. No one will care about the Reese’s Peanut Butter Christmas Trees. No one will care about these stupid bears.

What people will be worrying about in ten years is terrorism, the rise in mass shootings, AIDS, cancer, homelessness, inequality, racism, etc. These things matter and should be the focus of our attention – not a five-year-old cookie that someone pulled up from the dregs of the dark side of the internet.

It’s almost 2016. You only have so much time on this planet. How about we all agree to use our time and energy wisely and focus on the things we can do to make our world great. Our children deserve better than a society in which a stale pastry is a headline.