About

Starbucks Barista Crying is a viral video taken by a Starbucks customer at a drive-thru window where a Starbucks employee apologizes for not meeting their standards, gives them a free coffee card and then slams the window shut. At the end of the video, the employee can be seen tearing up. The video first went viral in February 2020 on TikTok and Twitter where it accumulated comments mostly pitying the employee and denouncing the customer for filming the interaction.

Origin

On February 7th, 2020, TikToker @publicfreakoutvideos uploaded the original video which Daily Dot^[2] confirmed from the TikTok account was submitted anonymously (shown below). The video gained over two million likes in five days.

Spread

On February 9th, 2020, Twitter user @shesinscrubs shared the video with the caption, "This video broke my heart. The smug voice, “Aw that’s a free drink.” I don’t understand why people feel so entitled to treat people in the service industry so poorly. Like how evil can you be to make a barista cry over your Starbucks latte & then film it" (shown below). The tweet received over 271,500 likes and 61,700 retweets in three days. That day, Redditor Historical-Sink posted the video to r/imatotalpieceofshit^[1] and garnered 220 points (96% Upvoted) in three days.

That same day, TikTokers @sh3rkh4n and @kikifrommetro dueted the original video calling out the customer for upsetting the employee (shown below). The videos accumulated over 367,900 likes and 35,600 likes respectively in three days.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References