My name is pretty common. Trust me, having a basic name doesn’t help the fact that my general aesthetic is already pretty basic, as in wearing Lilly Pulitzer Greek letters while walking my chihuahua to get a PSL – basic. Do you know the only place where my name, which happens to be on the top ten list for the year I was born, suddenly becomes exotic, cool, and definitely not basic? Starbucks (which is ironically the home of everything basic).
Every time I walk into Starbucks, I can’t wait to see the new way that they’ve been able to royally fuck up the spelling of my name. Does it annoy me? Not in the slightest. The only impact that it has on my day is the few minutes it takes me to Snapchat a picture of the cup, with some form of a witty caption.
It has, however, always left me wondering how these Starbucks baristas, who otherwise seem like pleasant, (generally) intelligent people have the ability to be such horrible spellers. Its not like I’m asking you spell anything difficult. If I had a name that was uncommon, I would be a reasonable person and understand. But when, chances are, you probably had a cousin, best friend, or, at least classmate, with my name, I don’t think I’m asking for too much.
A Youtuber by the name of Super Deluxe has a pretty intricate theory for why your local barista may be butchering your name. He believes that Starbucks wants you to exactly what I do every time my name is misspelled – take a photo. Every time someone takes a photo of their new name, the classic mermaid logo is always included in the shot as well. The Youtuber went onto theorize that this is a massive way for the company to generate free, constant and ‘real’ publicity from the people that they are generating revenue from.
They did an experiment with a girl, who might have a name even more basic than mine – Molly. Molly went to five different Starbucks stores, where her name was spelt: Molly, Molli, Molly, Mali and Mommy/
I’m convinced. There is no way that someone can spell Molly as Mommy and even be smart enough to operate a coffee machine. There might just be a lot more going on behind the scenes of the company who brought you your beloved PSL than you may think..