Caribou Coffee Sleeve Controversy | Know Your Meme

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Overview

Caribou Coffee Sleeves Controversy refers to the message “Fight the urge to remain indoors” printed on cardboard coffee sleeves at the Caribou chain coffee shop. Although the message was drafted before the coronavirus outbreak in April 2020, people began spotting the sleeves and posting pictures online, criticizing the message.

Background

On April 1st, 2020, Twitter user @MsEisenband posted about spotting a caribou coffee sleeve with the message “fight the urge to remain indoor” and added the caption, “Thanks Caribou” (shown below).

Developments

On May 19th, 2020, TikToker msr828 uploaded a video of himself while working at Caribou and taking out all of the sleeves with the message. The video garnered over 244,700 likes in three days (shown below). That same day, Twitter user @davejorgenson reposted the TikTok video adding, “Tough break for Caribou Coffee’s marketing team” and received over 461,200 views and 19,400 likes in three days.

That same day, Twitter user @derzquist tweeted, “Caribou Coffee wants to avoid bad PR when it comes to a silly slogan on their coffee sleeves but still drags their feet on providing PPE, no contact pickup, sick leave & hazard pay to employees.” (shown below, left). According to MPRNews, Caribou Coffee employees have been protesting. On May 21st, Twitter user @O_C_Chef_Girl posted an edited image of the sleeve to make it say “Fight Covid Stay Indoors” (shown below, right). The Daily Dot and Buzzfeed published articles on the controversy.

Various Examples

Search Interest

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External References