PhiloPsycho Freedom

Has anyone else noticed that there's this artificial inflation going on in stores? For example, "Williams" coffee pub only has three sizes: Medium, Large and Extra Large. Yes, you read correctly; there is no small. Though their medium is the size of a small of any other restaurant, they insist on calling it a medium.

My thoughts on this are that they're trying to make us believe it's larger and, more importantly, more valuable because it's perceived to be larger than it actually is. They don't actually change anything about the size of their drinks at all, but people may not realize that their medium is actually a small and are okay with paying that extra $0.50 over other shops for their drink.

How about those shops that insist on using pretentious, inconsistent language for their sizes? Yes, I'm looking at you, Starbucks. "Tall", "Grande", "Venti", What is this shit? If I order a large, you should know what I'm talking about without having to correct me by echoing Venti. Though, admittedly, it is rather confusing when their "medium" is named "grande", which translates to "bigger" or "biggest" (correct me if I'm wrong; I don't know Italian). If I insist "No, not venti, I want a large" I'm not insisting because I'm so ignorant as to not understand that your venti is my large, it's because I don't see the point in your idiotic title. Not to mention the fact that their small is in English, yet their medium and large are in Italian.

But, what is the point of all this naming nonsense? Why can't they just come out and say small, medium, large? Is "small" too psychologically invaluable that people don't want to bother with it? And if that is the case, why wouldn't you want to use it in order to goad people into only buying bigger sizes? Do they want us to think they're getting more bang for our buck over their competitors?

In my opinion, Starbucks is trying to be pretentious in an attempt to make people buy their label and the image that comes with it, going with the idea that you get what you pay for (and people do generally believe this), as well as the "prestige" and "status" that go along with drinking a double ristretto, venti, nonfat, organic, chocolate brownie frappuccino, extra hot with foam and whipped cream, upside down double blended (which happens to be the longest order you can place).

So I'd like to close by quoting two similar sentiments expressed from two very different movies:

"The things you own begin to own you"

And

"The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what the hell they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino."

Bonus points for knowing the references.

(For the record, someone told me an even longer order for Starbucks: Venti, non-fat, half a sugar, half a splenda, vanilla soy, double shot, decaffinated, no foam, extra hot, Peppermint White Chocolate Peppermint Mocha with a shot of espresso with light whip, upside-down, 1 pump of peppermint, 1 and 3/8 pumps vanilla,180 degrees, heavy whip-cream, 3 ice cubes, 1/4 teaspoon Nutmeg sprinkled on top, with green sprinkles, lightly cinnamon dusted on, stirred.)