Dumb Starbucks Maybe Not So Dumb

On Friday, February 7, a Dumb Starbucks Coffee opened in Los Angeles. Everything about it was the same as a regular Starbucks, except it had the word Dumb in front of everything—Dumb Grande Latte, Dumb Tall Cappuccino. The owner of the store was a mystery. Suddenly @dumbstarbucks was on Twitter, with a photo of their new store and their address, inviting customers to come. Dumb Starbucks is an art gallery selling “art” which is coffee, and thus it can be under the parody art law.

In the Frequently Asked Questions they have up in the store, it says that by putting dumb in front of Starbucks Coffee it is a parody, and “the same law that allows Weird Al Yankovic to use the music from Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat It’ in his parody song ‘Eat It’.” The Frequently Asked Questions further says that they see Starbucks as their role model, “unfortunately the only way to use their intellectual property under fair use is if we are making fun of them. So the ‘dumb’ comes out of necessity, not enmity.”

Over the weekend, hundreds of people lined up for a free cup of coffee from Dumb Starbucks, taking photos of their sign and logos, putting them on various social media sites. Some college students even drove there simply to take a photo with their sign to put it on Instagram. Some people waited as long as four hours just to go inside and have a Dumb Starbucks.

On Monday morning, February 10, Starbucks responded, “We are evaluating next steps and while we appreciate the humor, they cannot use our name, which is a protected trademark.” They emphasized that they had no affiliation with Dumb Starbucks. Starbucks spokesperson Laurel Harper, in an email to the Associated Press said that they majority of trademark disputes are “handled informally.”

In the afternoon of Monday, February 10, Nathan Fielder, a Comedy Central Comedian, announced at Dumb Starbucks that he was the President and they had plans to open another store in Brooklyn. Shortly afterwards, however the Health Department shut them down. While Fielder believes that since it is “art” he does not need any permits, I am not sure that will be how it all works out.

That evening Fielder went on Jimmy Kimmel Live, where he discussed Dumb Starbucks. He said, “Starbucks did say some things to the news and media outlets that weren’t so positive, you know about this, and you know it’s fine, I am operating 100% legally using parody law, but I don’t appreciate it. And I should say if they continue down this road they risk losing me as a customer.” He went on to disclose that until the issues with the Health Department are concluded, they will not be opening their store in Brooklyn.

He clearly likes Starbucks, in everything he has said and written it has been out of respect and appreciation for Starbucks and the empire they have built. Fielder’s show on Comedy Central is where he gives bad business advice to people with out of the box business ideas. On Jimmy Kimmel, he claimed that someone approached him with this idea and he “had to get involved.” I would not be surprised if this is simply a publicity stunt for his own show, much like his previous internet pranks—and it worked.