Starbucks has been mentioned more than 474,000 times on social media in the last week and “red cup” has more than 61,000 mentions.

One of the largest corporations in the world is again in the arms of haters everywhere, or at least on social media. Fresh off recent problems in America, close to last year’s pumpkin spice dispute  is The Red Cup Controversy. Every year Starbucks welcomes the holiday season with the introduction of its red holiday cup. The event is so popular, it has even had its own countdown clocks. More impressively, according to Starbucks, “Within the first 48 hours of red Starbucks cups launching, a photo of a holiday cup was shared on Instagram every 14 seconds.”

In previous years, Starbucks has included holiday designs on their cups, such as snowmen, snowflakes and Christmas trees. However, this year they decided to go with an ombre red cup with only their green logo to give it a Christmas feel. Unfortunately, some Starbucks customers weren’t so happy about the design and quickly began ridiculing Starbucks on just about every social media site. The chastising began with Starbucks accused of being “overly politically correct and aiming to destroying Christmas.” A lot of people who were mentioning Starbucks, and the Red Cup frequently on social media were saying that taking away the designs on the cups was taking away a huge part of their Christmas. Many people even took the step to say that Starbucks was attempting to alienate those who celebrated Christmas by making the cup less festive.

The backlash of Starbucks releasing this “solid red catastrophe” was immediate. The vice president of the company responded quickly by saying Starbucks “Wanted to usher in the holidays with a purity of design that welcomes all of our stories.” However, many people were still unsatisfied with the company. This dispute will hopefully die out soon, just as most internet trends.