So apparently Starbucks have ‘partnered’ with mermaids

[Kenworthington]

So the manager of my local one told me today. She looked aghast when I said I didn’t agree with it then as I started explaining, she had to take a drive through order. We had been chatting about my eldest ds being gay and she obv thought I’d approve of this collaboration. Hah. . I’m thinking of writing down where I stand on it and passing it to her. I take my elderly mum in there every day for a coffee and pastry. Not any more. Sigh. I hate thats it’s made me ‘that’ person

...And money goes to mermaids.

Call yourself what you like.

Mermaids is a harmful charity to children who are far to young to have a "sex change".

We should mass complain to Starbucks.

What does the core Starbucks demographic in the UK look like? Where I live it's mostly people who don't like coffee all that much (because there are tons of artisanal hipster blah blah alternatives, as well as better chains both small and large) so are ordering their coffee milkshake things with 27 ingredients, or people who're looking for free wifi and a place to work for a while. It's sort of the place you go when every other alternative is shut or too far to get to. Is it mostly the kind of woke young people who would tend to approve of Mermaids anyway? Is it older adults? In order to put together an effective pushback we'd need to know who to target, ie. what does the customer group Starbucks would most like to retain look like?

People won’t know what they are buying unless it is blazed across the packaging. Tell people - I have - and let them choose where to spend their money.

This takes me back to my student days. But then it was boycott companies who invested in the apartheid, or sold sub standard products to the poor in developing countries. Now it’s this.

Living in London I dread to think how many Starbucks I could call "local".

But yes interesting point about their customer demographics. Absolutely not for the coffee snobs! One of my locals seems to mainly have older people in it. The other coffee shops are the artisan type and packed with young people and mothers with buggies. In Starbucks branches nearer schools I often see loads of teens in the afternoon. They do a huge range of extremely sweet & calorific non coffee drinks that are surely designed to appeal to kids. Promoting Mermaids to this demographic is worrying as many kids will have also received ideologically biased training in school.

Weird posts recently from certain people who keep declaring that ‘we’ should do something

I don’t take orders from randoms off the internet, how about you?

Screenshot fodder perhaps?

I saw the ad yesterday

I have no words.

I’m struggling to articulate my thoughts on the film but I think what bothers me most about it is the possible interpretation that living as a ‘gender non-conforming’ young female is a relentlessly painful and lonely experience, and changing your name can fix all that. The dark mood and messaging leave me feeling pretty uncomfortable. The tone of this stuff nearly always does though - it’s rarely empowering or positive - and I worry how that impacts on young people already struggling with identity issues.

I saw the ad yesterday for the first time too. What struck me most was that at any other time ‘Jemma’ would have been a Punk, Goth, or member of another type of tribe specialising in teenage angst and rebellion again the norm. But unlike those groups where it was possible to emerge out the other end with maybe a few body piercings and dubious tattoos, this new group inflict a whole other level of harm on its members.

Aesop, yes. That’s what I’ve been feeling for a few months now.

My eldest has ROGD and I hate this ad, hate how all we’ve been through is reduced to a marketing campaign for a shitty tax dodging coffee company, worry about how it will affect girls with asd. It just seems another part of the drip feed that if they have short hair, don’t conform clothes wise to what they think girls should wear they are boys.

I’ve spent a lot bit of time lately waiting around colleges. One small sixth form has 9 girls in year 12 who identify as boys. At least according to the SENCO. Yet there are no goths, no punks, no alternative types. I’ve been waiting around in 3 different colleges, for SEN provision meetings, pick ups. etc. The only alt type I’ve seen is one punk boy. Even among the arts students. They just aren’t there. There is a real conformity across all 3 colleges

When it becomes the ‘norm’ it won’t be attractive/edgy/commentworthy anymore for a lot of these kids. It does remind me of goths!

I saw an ad for a new My Chemical Romance tour the other day, so maybe giving angsty kids some emo bands to follow might help? After all, regrettable piercings can be removed.

Posie has done a short video on this.

I have emailed Starbucks customer services using their online form and "Social responsibility" option, apparently I should get a response later today - within 24 hours. I outlined current court cases, growing numbet of detransitioners having been left mutilated and with serious medical problems due to the drugs. That their promotion coukd be seen as political interference as there is a public consultation over the GRA...

Would it be fair to suggest that detransitioners could possibly be triggered by the ads and cookies, and therefore it's not safe or inclusive for them?

Use the 'woke' language back at them?

To be honest I think it would upset detransitioners very much.

I saw the infuriating cookie.
They have no idea.

I think one problem is that all of the "alternative" fashion and music identities now get scooped up by fashion retailers and social media and sold right back to kids, invariably sexualising the girls as they do it.

I'm late 30s and can remember being into grunge and then raving and festivals as a teen. Looking back over photos recently I'm struck by how much less sexy the clothing was for my friends and I. My old Nirvana t shirts only came in big and had swears on them, unlike h&m's tiny cropped versions today. At festivals it was vests and tracksuits, no makeup or showers, we were there to dance! Now we get endless pictures of celebrities at Coachella in bralettes and micro shorts and heavily made up faces.

I'm not saying I have an issue with revealing clothing. Women should wear what they want. But it seems as if there are fewer options for young girls who don't want the Kim Kardashian kind of look, as all of the other sub cultures have kind of homogenised into sexy but with minor differences. So they can choose from sexy but with a 90s vibe. Or sexy with some hippy crochet and flowers in their hair. One of the appeals of a trans ID for girls must surely be that it steps away from all this?

I saw the cookies and a little sign. It will probably go the way of other Starbucks "charity" stuff and get ignored and quietly put away. Hope so.

It just seems another part of the drip feed that if they have short hair, don’t conform clothes wise to what they think girls should wear they are boys

But it is not even just that. Kids who became Goths didn’t necessary have a prior yearning to wear black and then think ‘Goths wear black I must be a Goth’. These kids are looking for a group to join, to identify with, somewhere with clear rules about what is required to be a member whilst at the same time making clear they are not ‘like others’ especially their parents. If it is seen as cool amongst their peers then even better and drastic ‘entry criteria’ just sets them apart as even more special to be in that group.

One of the appeals of a trans ID for girls must surely be that it steps away from all this?

I think you're right about this. 'Woman' is being marketed as a performance, even for actual women. What do you do as a girl or young woman if you don't identify with that?

stillathing I was talking about similar to the other students on my course recently (in my resident capacity as "the old cynical one") - that when I was a teenager grunge was in its heights and going out involved chucking a band t-shirt on, ripped jeans, DMs and running a brush through your hair - none of the hours of angst this generation has to go through with contouring, eyebrow maintenance (seriously when the fuck did the eyebrow angst kick in) and everything else. She looked quite shocked at the idea of fashion being that low maintenance!

I have very short hair at the moment and the uni is mid-Pride frenzy. Made the mistake of going into the SU building the other day and you could see them all thinking I was absolutely prime pickings for grabbing onto and signing all their pledges, petitions, rainbow glitter and pronoun badges and all sorts - the baffled look as this short bleached hair woman in jeans and a pretty unisex shirt and DMs just walked by and didn't feel the need to attach themselves to any other tribe or identity but "woman who can't be arsed with the faff of long hair and likes comfortable shoes" was amusing.

Julie Hartley Brewer is criticizing the biscuit on Twitter, and she's getting a lot of support.

I've just my parents in Starbucks for a coffee as I normally do every few weeks and when I saw the sign up I was horrified. My mum had never heard of Mermaids but when I told her she was rather taken aback. She goes to our local one 2 or 3 times a week and our town has very few options. I'm really hoping she'd consider boycotting but I know she won't.

Maybe there is a nice independent one that would appreciate her business?