The Holy Trinity of Hipster Capitalism

We keep coming back.. Picture courtesy of Wikipedia

TODAY

I’m in mourning that my two week Christmas vacation is over.. I love the time to be lazy and reflective. Today we have 55 chilly degrees under a bright blue sky – very invigorating. I’m sitting in new the Lakewood Starbucks, admiring the relaxed ambience. What a perfect segue to today’s topic..

THE TRIFECTA

If you think of “hipster capitalism”, many things spring to mind: Google, Facebook, Uber, Tesla.. and so forth and so on. The 3 companies I have in mind are noteworthy for being among the first of the hipsters and cementing themselves as part of our national identity and culture: Starbucks, Apple and Whole Foods Market. In 2015, I’d like to examine what we love now, what we loved then and if the dream is still alive. Let’s stroll thru our hipster places one by one...

Starbucks

EST: 1970
CLOSEST 1970 COMPETITOR: Dunkin Doughnuts

Starbucks had a slow build towards frenzied, Frappuccino success. Prior to Starbucks, coffee shops were more along the lines of greasy spoon hovels – with dirty ash trays and waitresses scuttling you along. Mavis needed to turn the tables. Starbucks gave us a trendy living room with comfy chairs and mood music. It brought unique coffee beverages into a pub-like atmosphere of convivial socializing. Who would’ve imagined? It wasn’t revolutionary per se, but revolutionary in the elements combined.

Apple

EST: 1976
CLOSEST 1976 COMPETITOR: Radio Shack

Computers for hobbyists had just been invented when Apple came along. They were hardly user friendly – they called for an engineering genius to put the pieces together and feed it programming instructions. For all its clunkiness, the Apple I gave the world an easy-to-use home computer. Osborn, IBM, Atari and others were asleep at the wheel. By the time they entered the market with their offerings, Apple had already entrenched itself with artists and educators. Macintosh was pretty far along on the drawing board.

WHOLE FOODS MARKET

EST: 1980
Closest 1980 competitor: Local delis, ethnic food marts

Whole Foods took food consciousness to a new level – with an emphasis on organics, purity of ingredients, local farm-sourcing and other wholesome factors. All of this was brought into a supermarket chain paradigm – one that gave customers a consistent feel-good experience from one store and city to the next. People seeking a special green tea didn’t have to do mail order or drive to Korea Town anymore – they could just go to a nearby Whole Foods Market. As with Starbucks, it wasn’t a revolution per se, but it was revolutionary presentation. This brings us now to a 2015 check-up... What have these guys done for us lately?

.. WHAT ABOUT NOW?

Starbucks has many competitors now.. The $4 Latte was too great of a boondoggle for others to ignore. Starbucks has hit a couple of bumps in an otherwise smooth ride. They closed a number of stores in the 2008 Recession and a few years later they made stores less luxuriant in an effort to turn tables faster. Some slackers were settling into the comfy chairs for an all-day visit. Overall, Starbucks is still true to its original concept: good coffee, good music, tolerable bench-like seating (now).

Apple has had an amazing trajectory. It was having a near-death experience in 1997 when Steve Jobs returned and brought his evangelical techno-wizardry back to the forefront. Apple is still riding high but with a couple of caveats (hinted at in a Simpson’s spoof)... It has a cult-like aspect both with employees and customers. A product's success should be based on intrinsic merit, not purely hipness or brand allegiance. There also appears to be an “Apple tax” paid for devices and accessories which is a monetary concern for people on a budget. Not surprisingly Samsung and Microsoft have wooed some people away with Galaxies and Surface Pro’s – you can’t sell to all of the people all of the time.

Whole Foods probably registers the biggest change from my own observations. Whole Foods Market was a fun, counterculture, quasi-hippie divergence in years gone by. Its parking lot had VW vans and cars plastered with provocative bumper stickers (“Eat brown rice” “Uppity Women Unite”). The whole shopping trip was like a reefer run to a hippie commune, or to an Austin health food emporium. It was fun and somewhat subversive. Stick it to the Man and buy cool stuff at the same time.

Whole Foods is now a snobby, pretentious experience – a gluten-free, cage-free, wine tasting affair with major appeal to law partners, CPA’s and soccer moms. The parking lot has mostly Mercedes, Porsche, and Lexus cars with a couple of reserved spaces for “eco-friendly” electric cars. Whole Foods’ 1980 concern over the ecosystem played well into the 2015 boomer fixation around global warming, recycling and carbon footprints. An obnoxious PwC Sr. Manager can assuage his capitalist conscience by knowing he just ate cage-free chicken and purchased a greeting card made from 100% recycled paper. Absolution never came so easily.

I might be judging these things in a harsh light and maybe not. I still patronize all these places in 2015. For Whole Foods, it might just be more of a people watching experience – but I must admit that their chocolate-toffee wafer cookies keep me coming back too.

© 2016 Snillor Productions