About

Gashi-gashi's Starbucks-chan, also referred to as Stb-chan, is an anime-inspired cartoon character based on the multinational coffee chain Starbucks' iconic green siren logo. It is also inspired by the controversy of Starbucks' temporary revival of its original logo between 2006 and 2008.

Origin

"The original drawing of the Starbucks brand signature or logo was based on a 15th century Norse woodcut of a two-tailed siren. In a mythological mermaid, Terry Heckler found the perfect metaphor for the siren song of coffee that lures us cupside." – The Strong Cup of Start-up: The Mermaid and the Name

In 2006 and early 2008, The Starbucks' company reintroduced a revamped version of their original brown logo of the twin-tailed Siren.^[1][2][3][4] The logo featured the full-body of the Siren in a Navasana pose, topless, with her upper body covered in flowing hair, leaving only her naval visible. In response to the change, many Christian groups boycotted the company for having,

"…a naked women on it with her legs spread like a prostitute…The company might as well call themselves, Slutbucks." – Mark Dice, Founder of the Resistance

On March 10th, 2017, Twitter user @uejini ^[5], a.k.a Gashi-gashi ^[6], posted an anime-like illustration of the siren based off her Navasana pose within the logo along with the caption, "i love coffee". The post accumulated 49 comments, 1.2k shares and 4.7k likes over the past months. Two days after the original image was posted, @uejini posted another illustration of STB-chan holding a coffee cup with the phrase, "Drink it," in the foreground.

Spread

On March 20th, 2017, @uejini posted concept art for the character design on Twitter gaining 20 comments, 508 shares and 2.7k likes. Around the same week, on March 31st, @InustarArt ^[9] posted the first Stb-chan in reply to his design.

In the following months, Gashi-gashi as well as many other artists began posting more illustrations of his design of STB-chan on sites such as DeviantArt ^[7] and Twitter. Gashi-gashi's Starbucks-chan was also featured on a mega thread on /co/ ^[8] following the creation of Smug Wendy's.

The thread has been debating whether Wendys or Starbucks has the better mascot. As the author, I highly recommend you read the thread.

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References