Dumb Starbucks, before it was shut down by the L.A. Department of Health, was basically a Starbucks except everything from the name on down had “dumb” written in front of it. “Dumb Frappucino,” “Dumb espresso,” and so on. And, because in this Age of ViralNova, nothing weird and beautiful can ever actually be weird and beautiful without being some kinda dumb marketing stunt, everyone knew that Dumb Starbucks out in L.A. was promoting a show or an energy drink or a new Ke$ha album.
The joke came to end yesterday, when Comedy Central’s Nathan Fielder revealed himself to be the one behind the conceptual prank thing. And in a press conference, Fielder vowed to bring this stupidity to Brooklyn.
KTLA was there when Fielder wandered out of the Dumb Starbucks to announce we’d all been spooked. This matters to you because, if we can take Fielder at his word, he’s going to open a Dumb Starbucks in Brooklyn. On the one hand, this means free coffee, since the store had to give away all of their coffee so as not to completely run afoul of fair use laws. On the other hand, all of your friends will be posting pictures of it and going “OMG STARBUCKS IN BUSHWICK!!!” or whatever. So consider this a PSA that no, the Dumb Starbucks isn’t real, and yes, we live in a nightmarish age of artifice.