Everyone knows that the problem with living in a bubble is that sometime, somewhere, someone will pop it quicker than a freshman's cherry. Narcissists, politicians, and emos everywhere have been struggling to find a solution to this problem and allow themselves to live suspended perpetually in their bubbles. Well, someone's already beaten them to it. The irony is that they'd probably see the answer right in front of themselves if they'd only take a second to emerge from their own bubbles. This solution, that everyone else has come to realize, is called market flooding enterprise, and if was devised by the reigning champions of this technique: the Starbucks chain.

Wait, what? Starbucks you say? But... but, but Walmart is taking over the world! How can Starbucks possibly be the culprit of something so sinister as purveying narcissistic emos?

While it is true that Walmart is expanding faster than the Empire at the hands of Palpatine, all anyone has to do is enter their local store to realize that the scope is limited strictly to consumerism. Promptly after passing through the squeaking door you're quickly taken upon by the aroma of sub-letter-grade meat. Quickly making your way past the empty McDonald's they've so carefully placed by the front door, you find yourself in a maze with walls of stacked merchandise. Side-stepping your way down the isles is much like navigating through the trenches of some God-forsaken front line. There's only enough room for a single cart to make it, and it only takes one dottering little old lady to bring the procession to a shambling halt.

A veritable horizon lined in vertical rows, it's organized excess. Shelves filled with gaggles of crap you didn't know you needed until the magic words ROLL BACK :) screamed at you from their high-hung signs. This phrase always accompanied by the pretentious smiley-face staring down at you like Mao Zedong propaganda. Who does that smug yellow bastard think he is, forcing good cheer upon you in an attempt to sell you a piece of plastic molded by some starving child in India. Sadist.

And that, my friends, is the extent of Walmart's power. Once you're free of the store walls the only thing left is the pang of guilt that follows you home. Guilt that's quickly assuaged once you realize you need to make another shopping trip. There's no bubble there, Walmart makes no false pretensions as to what they are.

Starbucks on the other hand, is a world unto its own, and it pervades ours. Once upon a time, the pseudo intellectuals were content to admit they deserved nothing more than obscurity. Now, because pseudo intellectualism has become a marketing tool of Starbucks, all those masses of lameness suddenly believe their existence is validated. Emos, hairy hippies, dead-beatniks, and other such riff-raff have found their clubhouse. It's a lot like MTV folks. Show people something crazy with the intent of selling it, and crazy people will emulate it with the intent to be cool. This is Starbucks and the movement they have encapsulated into their bubble.

Let's all take a trip to Starbucks, shall we? They've made it easy: www.starbucks.com

What do you see here? The crafty shades of mocha latte try to hide the obvious, but underneath the coffee bean camouflage the corporate beast lurks. Note the faceless customer in the lower right. This is how they see you, a nondescript mono-tone patron. The long hair suggests femininity, however, in today's "progressive" world, it could be anything. And they don't stop there. The only items on the entire page that have color are their coffee buzz words. The pretentious snobs actually brag about their lack of creativity. Take the word "venti" for instance. What is it for? The 20oz sized drink. What does it mean? It's the Italian word for "twenty." Get it? Hahaha... wait, that's not witty. The only thing that should be named after its size is an engine.

Going beyond the website and into the store itself, much more of the same is found. Random bits of literature and prose are scattered across the walls. The coffee cups themselves have articles written on them assuring you that Starbucks in on the fore-front of saving the world. Little notices throughout the store remind you that Starbucks is environmentally friendly because they minimize the use of paper products (they've stopped automatically including the cardboard slip for their hot cups) and that they use recycled paper as much as they can.

This is pseudo intellectualism. Snippets of poetry adorning the walls with such brevity that all their meaning is stripped. In fact, the short phrases seem to be chosen specifically because they're recognized as poetry/prose while still being devoid of any meaning open to artistic interpretation. Even the saving of trees, and thereby the world, is hypocrisy. Do you know what happens when less paper is used? There's less need for trees, duh. But when there's less need for trees, the logging companies stop re-planting them and sell the land off to housing developments to recoup the lost income. What was once a continual cycle of growth and harvesting becomes another suburban wasteland. So, there's actually less trees in the world because of the recycling freaks Starbucks promotes and caters to. Pseudo, pseudo to the core.

But wait, what's that you say? Starbucks is just a good place to get coffee and nothing more? Ha, you're in their bubble. Even if that's not the case and you've realized there's nothing special about Starbucks coffee, millions of people still patronize them every day. So a lot of people must think it's good coffee, even if it really isn't. Combine that with a store on every street corner, and that's one damn big bubble. And it's still growing. See, Starbucks is actually working to materialize the dream of bubble-dwellers everywhere. That is, when everyone's inside the same bubble, there's no one to burst it.