STARBUCKS: Aesthetics & the Performance of Identity

There is a girl at the table. She has a MacBook open, but she’s staring out the window at the traffic building with time. Around her, people fit into similar templates: officegoers in meetings (online or offline), friends catching up over drinks, high school kids winding down after such a tiring day in school (can you sense my sarcasm), dumping their bags in the ‘open sitting area’ before dashing into the AC to place their orders. 

And then there’s me, watching all of them from my auto, stuck in that very traffic — scowling, rolling my eyes. 

They all seem connected by an invisible thread — this collective aura of poshness, of better-ness, of higher-class-ness. All of it conjured by something as trivial as a drink in a cup with their name scribbled on it. 

A stupid, overpriced, overhyped cup of coffee that, somehow, became a status symbol. 

Starbucks isn’t just a café. It’s an aesthetic. A lifestyle. A curated vibe that people chase through their clothes, accessories, gadgets, and Instagram captions. It’s not about the coffee—it’s about what the coffee means. 

It’s an attempt to replicate what we've seen on screens: meet-cutes at cafes, working remotely with headphones on and latte in hand, romanticized study sessions. It’s a cultural export, absorbed through cable TV and Hollywood films, fueled by our ongoing, vaguely fetishized obsession with the West. Since some of us have neither the funds, time, means nor the reasons to be in that country, we do the next best thing: we live like we're there. 

But adopting a lifestyle isn’t just about attitude. It’s about consumption. As Pierre Bourdieu argued, taste is social — our preferences, even in coffee, are shaped by class and capital. You can’t just talk like an American and quote their sitcoms. You must consume like one too — wear their brands, listen to their music, use their tech (Apple, of course), and hang out in their spaces (malls, cafés, record stores).  

The problem? We don’t have Central Perk or Luke’s Diner. We have D-Mart and Naturals. But we want our meet-cutes, our indie-adulthood arcs. We want the filtered café scenes we’ve seen a thousand times. 

So, when liberalization opened the doors, the American dream snuck into Indian hearts like it was always meant to be there (I think I understand how colonization worked on us too). 

Starbucks arrived in India in 2012, right at Horniman Circle in South Bombay — a place still haunted by colonialism in its architecture, population, and aspirations.  

The perfect landing spot. 

From there, Starbucks slowly took over — dotting malls, corners, and high streets across the city. 

The first store I ever visited was in Khar. I’d accompanied my “friends” while waiting for my mother to pick me up, and they’d all been yapping about this place for a while — flashing their Starbucks card in class like it was an AmEx Gold card carrying a billion dollars. It was only human to be curious enough to know what the hype was about. 

I remember leaving my bag on a seat outside and following these girls in like a scared, shy toddler being introduced to relatives she doesn’t recognize — wide-eyed, quiet. The menu board was confusing, full of ingredients I didn’t recognize and prices I couldn’t justify. I didn’t even like coffee. Cold drinks were bad for my throat. So I settled on a bottle of water. That was my first Starbucks order: plain water, ₹80, thumbs up. 

When my mother asked about my experience, I shrugged.  

“Not really my place.” 

Despite having a financially stable background, I’ve always had a middle-class mindset: if something cheaper works, pick that. Starbucks never gave me the value — emotional or gustatory — to abandon that logic. 

Still, I get the appeal. The warm lighting. The cinnamon-coffee scent. The indie music. The names on cups that make you feel seen.  

It’s cinematic.  

Aspirational. 

I get it. 

But then again, I don’t. 

My dad became a convert post-COVID. He enjoys working from Starbucks — the ambience, the comfort, the familiarity. He even has the card. The same kind of card girls once waved around in school while debating their “usuals.” 

I was the girl who never walked into Starbucks on purpose. And if I ever did, it was either accidental or under peer pressure. I am the girl who wanders outside the café, waiting for my friends to return with their drinks, as if a Lakshman Rekha keeping me from entering. Even when I did walk in, I’d default to water just to avoid awkwardness at the counter. 

Eventually, my father bullied me into try something (a decision I am grateful for, considering now my baseless hate has, well, a base). I ordered a Double Chocolate Chip Frappuccino with no coffee, and it tasted exactly like a Keventers Chocolate Milkshake (which is half the price by the way). 

Disappointing, honestly. 

I genuinely thought maybe the drinks were the reason behind the hype. 

Maybe caffeine adds something special—I’ll allow them that benefit of the doubt. But for a non-coffee lover like me, Starbucks officially confirmed itself as irrelevant. 

It proved itself to be another place where I felt like a guest in someone else’s aesthetic. 

In India, Starbucks is less about coffee and more about cultural capital. Holding that cup is shorthand for a whole lifestyle: urban, English-speaking, upper-middle-class, cosmopolitan. It signals that you have “main character energy.” You probably like folklore-era Taylor Swift, read Colleen Hoover, and know your Myers-Briggs type. The drink doesn’t matter — the identity does (and truthfully, having your identity being associated with Colleen Hoover isn't something you should take pride in). 

To me, Starbucks represents a curated femininity I find hard to trust. The girls who “romanticize their lives” through Starbucks cups and bullet journals seem to be following an aesthetic playbook that promises uniqueness — but only within safe, trendy boundaries. It’s rebellion with a filter. Soft individuality pre-approved by Pinterest and TikTok. 

It’s “pick-me,” reversed. 

Look at the latest ‘summer refreshments’ reel Starbucks India posted. I felt like I was looking at a distant, warped version of the Indian young adults dancing and prancing and having fun in the non-existent picnic grounds of Bombay. It felt like someone had put Zoya Akhtar’s ‘The Archies’ in new clothes and shoved Starbucks glass cups with fruity looking drinks in their hands and asked them to frolic around and smile for the camera.  

It is some sort of forced, alien familiarity. 

While Starbucks feels like a “third space” — neither home nor work — it’s hardly inclusive. It caters to a very specific demographic. Walk into a Starbucks in Bandra or Khan Market, and you’ll see the same people: ones with MacBooks, Americanos, English conversations and unspoken hierarchies. 

Sit there without ordering much, and you feel it. Like you’re trespassing in someone else’s Pinterest board.  

Nobody throws you out, but you sort of wish they would. 

Still, as much as I parade my “professional Starbucks hater” badge, I get why people go. 

Not for the coffee — but to feel like that girl.  

Put together.  

Productive.  

Glowing.  

That’s the cruel brilliance of branding — it doesn’t sell products; it sells versions of the self. 

Starbucks makes you feel like you chose it. But really, the brand chooses you — if you fit its image. If you can afford the drink and the look and the language that comes with it. It sells an ecosystem, not just a beverage.  

You’re not buying coffee; you’re buying confidence.  

Starbucks, to me, is like that friend you low-key resent but still slap a smile on your face and have a conversation with while resisting eye rolls and snarky comments.  

It’s everywhere.  

It’s powerful.  

It’s shaping young Indian identities whether we like it or not. 

But as someone who’d rather spend ₹400 on a book, a cutting chai, or literally anything else, I reserve the right to roll my eyes. Not at the girls who go — but at the feeling that we need to become them to be seen, liked, and valued in this post-capitalist, Instagram-filtered world. 

So no, I don’t hate the drink. 

I just hate how one overpriced cup now says more about who you are than your personality ever could.