Extremely Lame

A long time ago, back in the ’90s, it became no longer fashionable to be a Young Urban Professional (yuppie). Reaganomics effectively died with Black Monday, the stock market crash in 1987. Teenagers, always a bastion of change and rebellion, ushered in a new culture in the late ’80s. Fueled by the alternative music scene of Seattle, the alternative movement found it convenient to rebel against something particularly vile, corporate greed.

Fast forward to today. Fighting corporate greed is no longer the banner around which all the “cool kids” rally. Some of us, however, myself included, never let go of that attitude of “fighting the power.” Corporations were still evil, but losing inertia from the mid ’90s caused us to become bitter and pretentious. Instead of placing the blame squarely on the shoulders of corporations, we began to turn on ourselves and look down on those who helped maintain The Corporation©. I became the equivalent of the petty high school girl who looks down on everyone except those who wear the cool brand names of clothes. I became a snob, looking down on those people who wore clothes from Abercrombie and Fitch et al. I tended to look down on everyone who sold out and “went corporate.”

This resentment consumed me for much of the late ’90s until I had an epiphany. I was being a real idiot. Worse than being an idiot, I was a hypocrite. I was shunning people for being a conformist while all that time I was conforming to the idea of what a non-conformist was. I had even gone so far as to shun Starbucks in favor of the “trendy, alternative” coffee shops. In fact, it was in one of these places where I realized my idiocy. After paying about two bucks for a large coffee, I headed to class.

Half a block down the street, I realized that this coffee wasn’t very good. In fact, it was downright bad. Suddenly, it dawned on me. Why am I paying two bucks for crappy coffee when I can pay two bucks for mediocre coffee at Starbucks? It’s even closer to class. Why on earth am I denying myself marginally better coffee just because it comes from a national chain of coffee bars? It’s not because it costs a lot more. It’s essentially the same price. Even the frou-frou espresso drinks are pretty much the same price, i.e., way too much. It’s not because of the better ambiance; I’m drinking it on the run. In fact, there really is no reason whatsoever for me to snub Starbucks in favor of the trendy coffee shop.

If I’m in a hurry and just want some coffee sans ambiance, I think I’ll go suck up some of that corporate aftertaste at Starbucks. If that doesn’t meet your approval, then call me a corporate sellout and accuse me of voting for Bush.

Of course, despite my caffeine-induced revelation, I am still a corporate snob of sorts. I don’t eat at McDonald’s; I think their food is barely on par with that of the Grade F meat we occasionally got in the navy. I don’t shop at Wal-Mart if I can help it; I can’t stand dealing with the throngs of redneck mothers and their spawn. And I definitely won’t shop at trendy stores like the Gap. I have this irrational fear that the minute I stepped foot in the place, sirens would go off and a chaingun would come out of the ceiling and cut me in half.