I love how when something becomes too cool, we have to start hating on it. Because hating on things is its own kind of cool. Like smoking-in-the-bathroom-at-school cool. Remember when we all loved Gwyneth Paltrow? I distinctly remember the phrase “She’s so Gwyneth” being a phrase that people would say. And it was a compliment. How about when Tae Bo was cool? And let’s not forget bangs. (Or wait, are those cool again? I can’t keep up.) Fads are obviously going to happen. We’re going to gradually move from one thing to the next when it comes to hair and music and fashion. (I”m looking at you, wide-legged jeans and chunky platform shoes of the 90s.) Times changes, tastes change. But I can’t help but be amused when we act like our own sense of self worth and cool points on the cool-o-meter are directly correlated with how much we distance ourselves from the things other people like. “Oh, you like that movie/that actress/that drink/that shirt? I’m more of a this obscure movie/this indie actress/this pretentious drink/this hipster shirt kind of person myself.”
So you can see how I might feel a little bad for the #PSL. Yes, it has its own hashtag now. You know you’ve arrived when you get a hashtag. Before you start yelling at me that I shouldn’t feel bad for the Pumpkin Spice Latte or for Starbucks, because hey Starbucks owns us all, let me rephase. I don’t feel bad for the PSL. I guess I feel bad for people who like it. I feel bad for me. Once again, something got too cool, too prevalent. Now, everywhere I turn, I’m reading something about how the Pumpkin Spice Latte is what’s wrong with the world. It’s corporate. It comes out too early in the season (It’s not even cold yet!). It doesn’t event (GASP!) contain pumpkin in it. It’s a dumb thing that white girls in yoga pants like and it makes them all alike, like robots and sheep.
What if I just think it tastes really freaking good? And what if I just want to drink my 16,000-calorie drink in peace? Can that happen?
Look, I get that Starbucks is taking over the world and that’s sort of terrible. I make a point to go to my smaller, local coffee shops. I’m also not a generic white girl in yoga pants. So stop judging me. Ok, I have yoga pants and I wear them sometimes. But I’m more than my Pumpkin Spice Latte. I’ll never be cool enough to like the obscurest, indie-est, most pretentious, hipsterish stuff. Can you let me drink my everything-that’s-wrong-with-the-wrold-and-utterly-delicious-drink in peace?
The Frozen Southerner 