6. Basically Starbucks

A Pumpkin Spice Latte from Starbucks is the perfect accessory for the "basic bitch." But why? We dive into the PSL's origin story, and trace Starbucks' route from elitist to basic. PLUS: Product Misplacement with Jean Edelstein.

Reported by Kate Taylor and Dan Bobkoff. Produced by Anna Mazarakis.

Read more:

• The inventor of the Pumpkin Spice Latte speaks out on the iconic drink's 'basic' reputation
• Starbucks is facing a 'basic' Pumpkin Spice Latte-infused identity crisis

Transcript

Note: This transcript may contain errors.

DAN BOBKOFF: Quick language warning here: this episode contains the B word, the S word, and the PSL word.

LOHANTHONY: Calling all the basic bitches, calling all the basic bitches. There's a new announcement: (whispers) You're basic.

DB: From Business Insider and Stitcher this is Household Name. Brands you know, stories you don't. I'm Dan Bobkoff. Today:

YOUTUBE: The PSL!

JOHN OLIVER: The coffee that tastes like a candle.

DB: The icon of being basic: the Starbucks' Pumpkin Spice Latte. How did that happen?

YOUTUBE: It's definitely not the worst thing I've ever had.

YOUTUBE: Pumpkin Spice Latte! Does it deserve the hype?

DB: Stay with us.

ACT I

DB: Can you introduce yourself please?

KATE TAYLOR: I'm Kate Taylor. And there are three things you should know about me relevant to our discussion today. Number one: I cover retail and fast food here at Business Insider. Number two: Sometimes I get my coffee at Starbucks. And number three: I consider myself to be a little bit basic, or as some people might say, a bit of a basic bitch.

DB: Well then, it's like your Christmas!

KT: Yes, it is! It's Pumpkin Spice Latte season!

DB: I have so many questions.

KT: And I am here for you.

DB: OK, first of all… Why is Starbucks basic?

KT: I will explain.

DB: And why of all things in the world, is the Starbucks pumpkin spice latte the ultimate symbol of being basic?

KT: Ok, I can get you these answers. But you're going to have to come with me… to a place called the Liquid Lab.

PETER DUKES: And to kind of help set the mood, we actually set up the lab so it kind of felt like Thanksgiving, if you will, with leaves and pumpkins and everyone brought in pumpkin pies.

DB: What's happening?

KT: This is Peter Dukes, in a Starbucks lab in 2003. And watch. He's about to invent something that will change the course of history.

PD: People brought in pumpkin pies and everybody has a different pumpkin pie recipe that comes from their family and some are high pumpkin, low spice; high pumpkin, high spice; low pumpkin, low spice.

KT: He's been a product manager at Starbucks for almost two decades.

PD: There's all these different variations and what we did is we poured shots of espresso on them, mixed them up and actually eat them with our fork.

KT: Peter and the rest of his team are basically combining all of these different things together. A little bit of pumpkin pie, a little bit of espresso, and really just like making a Frankenstein combination of the two.

PD: And it was through that process that you start to discover or realize that pumpkin pie, there's a heavier body that comes with it.

KT: They kind of realize that it's hard to combine them exactly, so they're going to have to create kind of a syrup that captures the flavor of spicy pumpkin pie without just dumping pumpkin into a bunch of coffee. And that's basically how they created the pumpkin spice latte.

PD: A recipe that would be high in pumpkin and high in spice.

KT: There you go. Date of birth: 2003. First name: Pumpkin. Middle Name: Spice. Last name: Latte. For short: PSL.

DB: What happened next?

KT: Peter brought it to a focus group. And people are telling him… 'well, we're not sure if we want to buy this thing, but it sure is...something. '

PD: I don't want to say off the charts but it was one of the higher beverages in terms of how it scored in terms of uniqueness.

KT: Uniqueness. What's funny about that is, we're in 2003 and people think this drink, the pumpkin spice latte is completely unique!

DB: It's a liquid pie with espresso.

KT: Right, but let's fast forward a few years… and the pumpkin spice latte — the PSL — is now the symbol of the exact opposite of unique. It's defined a movement. It's the poster child of being, and i'm going to use the full term here… a basic bitch...which is liking things that everyone likes, even if you don't realize your taste is painfully mainstream.

DB: So, Peter Dukes is the father of being basic?

KT: (laughs) Not quite. Starbucks didn't mean for the PSL to become the symbol of a certain kind of person. In fact, I'm not sure if Peter Dukes knows what basic means, or maybe he's just pretending to be ignorant.

KT: As the inventor of the PSL, how do you define basic?

PD: You know...as you were talking, I was going to, if i'm allowed to pivot the question: What's your definition of basic?

DB: well funny he should ask...

FOCUS GROUP:

Only getting coffee from Starbucks.
Uggs.
Rose
Iced coffee.
Avocado toast.
Lily Pulitzer
Denim jackets.
Green smoothies.
Brunch.
Bean boots.

DB: Kate, as you can tell I've been doing some research of my own. I focused group-ed our office.

DB: Are you all basic?

FOCUS GROUP:
I've been told so, and I guess I agree?
I'm extremely basic.
I think I might be.
I think it's just embracing what's popular but thinking it's special.
I think it's just doing what the majority of the rest of the world is doing and you thinking you're cool because you're following that.
If I were to post a picture, they'd be like 'oh, she's so basic. Of course she'd post this picture.'

DB: OK, but what I don't understand is why the PSL of all drinks the most basic of them all. I mean, why is Starbucks in general basic? And how did it get that way? Because I remember not that long ago when the knock was that it was making coffee expensive!

JIMMY KIMMEL: A seven dollar cup of coffee? I feel like this is a test to find out just how stupid we are.

DB: And complicated.

YOU'VE GOT MAIL: The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee.

DB: And elitist.

ANTI-HOWARD DEAN AD: Take you tax-hiking, government-expanding, latte-drinking, sushi-eating, Volvo-driving, New York Times-reading…

DB: How did Starbucks go from all that to painfully mainstream?

KT: Okay, let's do some quick time travel. Because to know the PSL, you need to know where it came from.

Imagine: It's the early 1970s, and a shop in Seattle opens calls Starbucks. It doesn't even serve hot drinks. Just coffee beans.

And come with me through the '70s and '80s and '90s, and America's mainstream coffee culture was counter coffee, or cuppa joe — it's the kind of coffee that you just order it at a diner or corner store and they'd hand it to you immediately from a big batch that had already been made. I mean, it only cost a buck, so it didn't have to be fancy.

Then as the corporate lore goes, a guy named Howard Schultz takes a trip to Italy in 1983 and is taken with the country's coffee culture. He liked dropping in for an espresso and hanging out.

Schultz then comes back and buys the six Starbucks stores in Seattle and he transforms them into the coffee chain we know today — into the mainstream coffee culture we know today.

He decided the person behind the counter would get an Italian title: barista. The baristas would make the drinks with fancy names like lattes and cappuccinos and macchiatos. Not many people in the US had even heard of these drinks before.

In fact, in a 1992 article about Starbucks expanding, the New York Times had to tell readers how to pronounce the word 'latte.'

DB: What were people saying before they knew how to say it?

KT: Maybe late-ee?? But—

DB: I'd like a lat-ey, please.

KT: One lay-tay. Um, no… it's literally the New York Times has to say how to pronounce it.

And there wouldn't be a big batch of espressos behind the counter; the baristas took time to make each drink individually and then they would call you buy your name when your drink was ready.

BRYANT SIMON: At the outset, much of it was kind of brilliant for Starbucks. One, it gave Starbucks this kind of veneer of European-ness, right?

DB: Who's this?

KT: This is Bryant Simon. He's going to join us for our journey for a bit. He's a historian at Temple University, and he's also kind of obsessed with Starbucks. It started at a New Years party.

BS: We bought a bottle of French champagne and everybody kind of stopped drinking it and once was open, it would go bad if I didn't stop and so I finished the bottle and then woke up the next morning feeling predictably crappy and got in the car because no one else was up and where did I find myself? I found myself at a Starbucks in a strip mall in suburban Atlanta.

KT: He's hungover and bleary-eyed. And he starts coming back to life and observing the people around him, like a good academic.

BS: They were chatting, there was a kind of buzz to the place. I began to think there was something going on there and it wasn't just about selling coffee.

KT: And this morning starts him on an odyssey. He went on to visit 400 Starbucks locations and then wrote a book called Everything But The Coffee: Learning about America From Starbucks.

So, we're still in the 90s now and Starbucks is becoming a national chain. Americans are starting to get to know these strange sounding words like venti and grande and cappuccino.

BS: You know, language and names are a way to create insider and outsider groups. Right, teenagers do this all the time create a language that their parents can't understand. And Starbucks created a language that you had to master in order to belong.

Now it wasn't that hard. But it did create insiders and outsiders and I think part of the reason why people paid for Starbucks was this kind of belonging they got with it. The way that the kind of hyper-detail to the orders to those outsiders was easy to mock, now when I talk to a lot of people who worked at Starbucks they said the customers who needed belonging the most often had the most kind of difficult to say drinks.

DB: Wait, 'the customers who needed belonging had the hardest to say drinks.' That's almost kind of touching…

KT: Yeah, and maybe a little sad.

DB: it's also like really personal … I mean they are making these custom drinks for individuals. It feels like a far cry from the idea of being basic.

KT: Totally. There's also a kind of cool factor, some cachet, in being a Starbucks person. It's saying that you're in the know… and you're also not afraid to drop multiple dollars on a single cup of coffee.

BS: When I was doing my research, a young Madison Avenue executive told me that in the mid 1990s, he got a job at an advertising firm right out of college, he wasn't making very much money, and on Mondays he would go buy a cup of Starbucks. And he'd take the sleeve off and he would walk into the office with kind of the logo first. And then when he was finished the coffee, he would put it back in his bag and fill it up at home the next day. So people thought he was buying Starbucks every day.

DB: That's a disgusting way to have status.

KT: I know, I do not think that would fly today...but in the '90s, Starbucks is like the BMW of beverages.

BS: One of the people I talked to for my book said, 'people can't see me everyday in my BMW but they can see me carrying a cup of Starbucks.' And so the very overspending of coffee, one said like that you had money. Second, the fact that you could tell the difference between Starbucks or at least appear to an ordinary coffee made you look like you had taste and culture and refinement. And so what it became was kind of an affordable form of luxury.

KT: And it's becoming an available luxury. At this point, Starbucks has 3,500 stores.

NEWS: 4, 3, 2, 1, Happy 2000!

DB: Oh wow, it's the new millennium. I remember this.

KT: Yes, happy new year. And Howard Schultz says he has a resolution: In this brand new century, he's saying he wants to go from 3,500 stores to more than 20,000.

FIGHT CLUB: Planet Starbucks.

DB: After the break, we'll find out how that expansion collided with the concept of Basic, in hip hop, and then YouTube.

ACT II

DB: Alright Kate, so when we left off, Howard Shultz was planning a massive expansion from 3500 to 20,000 stores. Which is a lot.

KT: Yes. So many! And now Americans are getting used to the fancy coffee names, and they're starting to see Starbucks everywhere.

ELLEN DEGENERES: So this morning I went to Starbucks. You know Starbucks, you've heard of Starbucks. There's one on the corner, next to the Starbucks, across from the Starbucks.

THE SIMPSONS: "Can I help you?" "I'd like to get my ear pierced" "Well, better make it quick, kiddo, in 5 minutes this place is becoming a Starbucks."

KT: So as you can hear Starbucks is popping up everywhere and people are getting a little bit annoyed. So let's kind jump ahead to around 2006.

BS: Starbucks itself is beginning to lose some of its popularity, it's beginning to lose some of its kind of customer base. It has to sort of struggle with this, and which it will do for the next 10 or so years.

KT: Starbucks no longer like a BMW. Starbucks is now more like a Toyota Camry. It's still selling a ton, but Bryant notices around now it's becoming more ubiquitous and maybe forgettable.

BS: In some ways, it was just the kind of ordinariness and sameness of it kind of overwhelmed me. And I remember while I was doing my research, it was in the period where they kept playing Alanis Morissette over and over again and it seemed like wherever I went I got that acoustic version of the Alanis Morissette record that drove me crazy. It was that first record, Jagged Little Pill. [laughter]

I don't even remember the name of that song. I think I've tried to repress that memory. And that was my own personal pain. It also spoke to just how ordinary and the same a lot of Starbucks were.

[IRONIC CLIP]

DB: Isn't it ironic… that Starbucks is becoming basic?

KT: No comment. But you're getting it. Starbucks is becoming mainstream. And then just when fate seems doomed to everyman ubiquitous ordinariness...Peter Dukes has his mad scientist moment in a lab with some nutmeg, cinnamon and ginger.

DB: And there's the Pumpkin Spice Latte! On the menu!

KT: And yes, people are buying it.

PD: I'll never forget coming in and pulling the numbers and looking at the numbers and how well it sold and then you just knew you had a winner and you picked up the phone, you talked to some store managers directly, and the excitement in their voice and how they talked about how much their customers enjoyed it, how much our partners, our baristas loved this beverage, you just knew that you had a beverage that was going to resonate.

KT: It's not resonating with those ad executive-types who used to show off their Starbucks coffee cups in the office. But it starts to build a fanbase.

DB: So, in this period, does drinking a PSL at Starbucks say anything about you as a person?

KT: Not at first, maybe it just means you really love fall. But it wasn't an icon of being basic at first. In fact, the term basic bitch wasn't really used that much until around 2009.

DB: Ok, I found someone who I think can help us understand all this. Noreen Malone is a features editor at New York Magazine. She wrote one of the seminal pieces analyzing basicness back in 2014, and she has a good sense of how the idea of being "basic" came to define the kind of person who might buy a Pumpkin Spice Latte.

NOREEN MALONE: We should be clear that the term basic was totally appropriated from hip hop culture by white women to describe other white women which is you know sort of a basic thing to do if you want to frame it that way.

DB: Around 2009, the Black comedian Lil Duval used it in a rap.

[LIL DUVAL CLIP]

KT: Yeah, that's about the time that "basic bitch" first shows up online, on Urban Dictionary in 2009

NM: I think it sort of crossed over via a couple of things. There was this rapper Kreayshawn. She was a white rapper around 2010 2011 who was sort of a figure of ridicule but she had a song where she was shouting out luxury brands and saying basic bitches love these things.

[KREAYSHAWN CLIP]

NM: And then there was a viral YouTube star, a young sort of pre-adolescent boy named Lohanthony who had a very charming video where he said calling all the basic bitches and that went viral.

LOHANTHONY: Calling all the basic bitches, calling all the basic bitches. There's a new announcement. (whispers) You're basic.

NM: And so it came to a wider audience and then it basically became sort of white woman on white woman crime right. That these that some women were using it to describe other women who they didn't think had interesting taste. And you know of course men can be described as basic too. I think it's really context dependent. It does tend to mean this you know sort of stereotypically sorority girl thing.

KT: And so now we're in 2013.

DB: The PSL is ten years old!

KT: About as old as Lohanthony

DB: And you have a smartphone now.

KT: Yes, and by now the PSL is a tradition. And it's no coincidence that the rise of the PSL charts pretty evenly with the rise of smartphones.

PD: Over time, you had these PSL fanatics who are so looking forward to the return of PSL and then it arrives and they announce that it's arrived and there's so much excitement and that marker of fall and then you know obviously when it goes away, they lament the fact that it's, they can't get it anymore and you know wait another year before it returns.

KT: So Starbucks is encouraging a lot of this. They have ads and special cups and a special twitter account for the PSL, though they would not call the customers "basic".

But the difference is now it's 2013. I have Instagram and Snapchat on my phone. And I want to tell all my friends just how excited I am that it's pumpkin spice latte season. So I take a picture. And… let's see… hashtag… PSL.

And so do all my friends.

Now people who write for the internet — so, people like me — are noticing. That the PSL— hashtag PSL—is a thing. And you can see a whole bunch of articles appear online around this time.

DB: And so basically, this is this the moment that the Pumpkin Spice Latte and basicness, these two absurd concepts, converge in the world.

KT: Basically, yes.

COLLEGEHUMOR:
It's gonna be fine, no matter what happens, babe.
I got your results back, and, um, you're a basic bitch. You've been tweeting about Starbucks. Hashtag caffeine. Where did you come up with that?

KT: That CollegeHumor video has more than 13 million views. And now we get this Taylor Swift parody…

TAYLOR SWIFT PARODY: It's that time of year. Pumpkin spice is here. I can't wait to drink...

KT: This anthropological offering from Hoodwinked Films.

HOODWINKED: The changing of the seasons and the leaves falling marks a very important part of year for the basic bitch. That means that it's pumpkin spice latte season down at the Starbucks.

KT: And then — we're almost back to 2018 — Martha Stewart goes on Watch What Happens with Andy Cohen and puts any mystery that's left to rest.

ANDY COHEN: Pumpkin spice everything… delicious, or for basic bitches only?

MARTHA STEWART: It's the latter.

AC: Oh, for basic bitches? Martha Stewart says pumpkin spice is for basic bitches, you guys? I love it… this is the greatest moment of this show ever!

DB: But I still want to know: is calling someone "basic" an insult?

FOCUS GROUP: I wouldn't say it's a bad thing. I'm basic and I'm proud. (laughs)

DB: This is that group of self-described basics from our office you heard earlier.

FOCUS GROUP:

I'd say I try not to be basic, but then… I love all of the things that are basic, and so there's no point in being ashamed of that. I mean, It's just my lifestyle (laughs)

I think it's an insult if you're like generally basic but you're trying not to be and then someone accuses you of it.

Yeah, I think that if somebody posts a photo of like a sunset on Instagram, and they might really think that's beautiful and want to share that with the world, but then somebody just comes in and undercuts that with 'that's basic' because they see a lot of sunset pictures on Instagram…it's an insult. You know, so for sure. It's changed everything. Because you know how it might be perceived. And—

Do you think you post predictable things?

Well, I mean, yeah, maybe.

Like what?

Well, like a sunset, for instance.

You only post sunsets?

No, Lauren. (laughs) I don't only post sunsets.

What about coffee??

NM: And a lot of what people are criticizing is that you know these women, mostly women, have the wrong taste and brands that they like these mass market things, they you know are buying whatever people are selling them.

DB: And remember those brands that exude basicness…

FOCUS GROUP:
Only getting coffee from Starbucks.
Uggs.
Rose
Iced coffee.
Avocado toast.
Lily Pulitzer
Denim jackets.
Green smoothies.
Brunch.
Bean boots.

DB: Noreen thinks that list is getting a bit dated.

NM: We should probably update our definition of basic and I'm not exactly sure what those brands are. You know again it's so contingent like I think if you're in San Francisco wearing Allbirds is probably a pretty basic thing to do. But like avocado toast and Uggs have been a punchline for a really long time now. I think we could stand to update it.

KT: Some new punchlines might come as a relief to Peter Dukes, the guy who invented the PSL. This poor guy has been developing espresso drinks for years and the one thing everyone always wants to talk to him about is the PSL.

PD: I am now comfortable with when my daughter's friends come up and say 'oh you worked on the PSL.' I'm like, 'yeah it was a fun experience, I worked with a great team on it and you know, you never know when you take risks, you never know what's going to happen with it.' So I'm to the point fine where I'm comfortable with that.

KT: Was that a process for you?

PD: Yes, that was definitely a process.

KT: But as much as Peter Dukes and Starbucks don't like to talk about it, if the basics move on to some other coffee place, that could be bad for the chain.

DB: Yeah, Noreen talked about that.

DB: Do you think Starbucks will always be basic?

NM: You know, I don't know. I think again there is a little bit of an aspirational element to basic consumption patterns. So if Starbucks ceases to be aspirational for that group of people then it might not. You know Starbucks is a huge corporation with shareholders that it has to satisfy. I think that they probably are going to work very hard to keep their sort of market penetration really really high. And if that means appealing to a certain group of people I think they will continue to try to do it.

DB: So our main question is: How did Starbucks and the PSL become the symbol of basicness? And it seems that it's this convergence of the rise of Instagram culture and SnapChat at the same time as you have youtube stars coming out, at the same time that you have online media writing think pieces about everything happening in culture, and then there's this one event every fall where people go to the local starbucks and there are now thousands and thousands of them so it's ubiquitous and everywhere and they have to Instagram their first PSL of the year, hashtag PSL, and therefore a cultural phenomenon is born.

KT: At the center of the idea of what the PSL is and at the center of what being a basic bitch means is a force between something being mainstream and something being unique or cool. So starbucks started as really unique and cool and then as it became mainstream, that's when it became basic. And the PSL kind of embodies that where it's just a really sweet drink that comes across once a year and it's not really that creative if everyone can get it. But because everyone's talking about it, every basic bitch needs to have one.

DB: And so if Starbucks hadn't opened so many stores, stores across the street from other stores, they never would have been able to have something that was so ubiquitous that it could be crowned as basic.

KT: Totally. If Starbucks was still kind of this indie little coffee chain that people were going to to feel special and artsy, then there's no way something out of there would have been the crown jewel in the basic bitch kind of repertoire.

DB: Kate, so you report on Starbucks a lot, where is the company going now?

KT: It's going in a lot of different directions. On the one hand, it's opening these new fancy stores called Roasteries that have a fancy pourover type drinks and all these rare kind of different blends and different beans that coffee aficionados have come to love - and that they're willing to pay $10 for.

And then at the same time, 80% of new Starbucks locations are drive-throughs

Howard Schultz left and is rumored to be thinking of running for public office. While that happens, the company is grappling with a very high profile racial bias incident in Philadelphia that led to the chain closing all of its stores in the US for hours while the employees had racial bias sensitivity training.

So, Starbucks is having some trouble being all things to all people — including the "basic" crowd that's become a huge part of its customer base.

DB: And what's next for the pumpkin spice latte?

KT: Well it's definitely not just a starbucks thing anymore. There's literally pumpkin spice deodorant now, like—

DB: Ugh!

KT: It's, i think we might have hit peak PSL and now we're kind of going from being the symbol of being basic to just everywhere. And when something's everywhere, it loses some of that symbolic momentum.

DB: huh it's like losing its basicness but becoming more basic?

Kate: Exactly. (laughs)

DB: Kate. Early on you told us that the guy who created the PSL, Peter Dukes, doesn't really know what basic means.

KT: I actually think he does, but he was a little careful when we were talking.

Here's the rest of his answer when I asked him about the PSL being basic… being the height of unoriginal…

PD: Yeah… I don't… I wish I could answer that question, but I just… I don't. I don't know how to answer that one, about the basic…People like to customize their beverages here so even with the PSL, people discover their own unique way to make their PSL so whether that's adding a shot of espresso or using almond milk or soy milk to create their own PSL experience. If that's basic, ok!

KT: Are you ok with it kind of having that reputation, or is that something you think about? Or not at all?

PD: It's not something I think too much about. Again, I guess I link that back to as we were talking about earlier, people seem to have fun with the PSL. And you know, that marker of fall. And you know having fun with this beverage and if that's basic so be it.

KT: (laughs)

DB: Noreen put it a little more bluntly.

NM: Wouldn't you be like embarrassed if like this thing that you thought was so cool and innovative became like this stand in for all that's wrong with the tastes of a certain kind of American? I would. (laughs) But you know like laughing all the way to the bank probably.

DB: So Kate Taylor, you told us at the beginning that you are a self described basic. You also cover starbucks extensively for Business Insider. How do you feel about all this now?

KT: I feel excited. I'm excited for basicness to evolve and I'm excited for starbucks to evolve. Like, I like avocado toast, I like PSL, I'm excited what basic thing will be bestowed on me next. And as a reporter, it's such a cool time to cover Starbucks where they could kind of plunge off a cliff and not be able to continue being everything to everyone but they're kind of throwing a ton of things at the wall and seeing what sticks. So it's an interesting time for both being a basic bitch and a Starbucks reporter.

DB: Are you ready for your 2018 pumpkin spice latte?

KT: Oh I am so ready. I will be there the first day possible.

DB: I think I'll pass.

KT: #PSL.

DB: (laughs) Coming up. How the reviewers on Amazon's top rated sweatpants made one person feel less alone.

ACT III

DB: It's time for Product Misplacement. This is the part of the show where we hear how brands have played a part in our listeners' lives — for better or worse. My friend Jean Hannah Edelstein tells the story of how the top-rated sweatpants on Amazon made her feel less alone.

JEAN HANNAH EDELSTEIN: About two and a half years ago I think, it was January of 2016, and I had just gotten dumped by someone who I was very into, let's say. (laughs) Having a relationship was the, which was the kind of relationship that all the red flags were there, that it wasn't going to go anywhere good, but nonetheless I had really put my heart into it.

I was first diagnosed with depression when I was 14. Most of the time it feels, you know I've had a lot of experience with it and a lot of treatment so it feels pretty well managed but certain life events can definitely kind of send me spinning and in this case, I was really low or as I like to describe to people, it feels like I'm wearing a hat made out of cement so everything that I'm trying to do feels just heavy and difficult, so it meant that it was very hard for me to get up in the morning, hard to go to work, hard to see friends, all I really wanted to do was like, stay inside and sit on my couch and eat soup.

But I did have one problem which is that I had a dog. The dog is a totally delightful dog but the problem was that I had to take her out twice a day and that really went in opposition to my ideal situation of never leaving my house again. Um, so anyway, it was January, it was super cold and I was like 'I need to get some sweatpants.' (laughs) Because I needed, you know, clothes to wear when I was taking the dog out.

Um I wanted them to be something that was just like, I was so depressed I was really struggling to get up in the morning anyway so I was like, 'I need something that I can just put on without thinking about it.' I had some leggings, the leggings were too much effort like if that's a measure of how bad I felt. (laughs) So I was like, 'ok, I'm gonna buy some sweatpants.' And then I was like, 'well, I'm too depressed to go to the store, I don't want to think about what sweatpants to buy.' So I was like, 'ok, I'm going to go on Amazon and I'm gonna buy the top-rated sweatpants on Amazon.'

DB: What were the top-rated sweatpants on Amazon in the winter of 2016?

JHE: They were men's Champion, charcoal gray heather sweatpants, crucially with an open bottom. You know like you get the sweatpants with the elastic bottom? These had an open bottom.

DB: Sorry, open bottom?

JHE: Yeah.

DB: That sounds like a hospital gown.

JHE: Around the ankle, yeah.

DB: Oh ok, not that kind of bottom! [laughter]

JHE: So let's re-record this: Champion, men's, charcoal gray heather sweatpants with an open hem, so not the elastic around the ankle, they were open around the ankle which made them easy to pull on and off, even if you were wearing shoes, which was an important detail.

So I saw that those were the top-rated sweatpants and I thought, 'ok I'm just gonna read some reviews of these sweatpants to see, how did people feel about them?' And there was, I think, over 2,000 reviews of the sweatpants. And I was really amazed to find that people had really strong opinions about these sweatpants, like people had really invested in the sweatpants. And what really struck me was that a lot of the people who were reviewing the sweatpants positively were also going through hard times in their lives. And actually I just felt kind of really heartened, despite myself, that like here were all these other people who were struggling a bit in life, but we were united by a sweatpant. Each of us putting one charcoal gray heather leg in front of the other.

DB: Sweatpant nation.

JHE: It was a sweatpant nation. I started thinking of them as my sweatpant brothers and sisters. So yeah, I ordered the sweatpants and they came and I think one person, one review said something like 'so...they're sweatpants.' And it was quite satisfying that that's exactly what I received. They were just a pair of sweatpants, they weren't fashionable, they weren't unfashionable, they weren't trying to be anything special. And that's what I needed at that sort of blank time in my life.

So yeah, I started wearing them when I walked the dog and I pretty much wore them all the time when I wasn't going to work, and over time you know, it got warmer, I got over the relationship, things in my life improved and um, I didn't need the sweatpants as much anymore. (laughs)

DB: Where are they now?

JHE: I still have them. They're definitely like still in my drawer but they're no longer you know such an essential part of my wardrobe. But every time I see them I think of my sweatpants brothers and sisters and what a special time we had together.

DB: Are they still the top-rated sweatpants on Amazon?

JHE: No. They have sunk in the ratings.

DB: What happened?

JHE: I don't even know. But I think last time I looked they were around maybe number 60 or something like that. So—

DB: To you, they're always number one.

JHE: They'll always be number one. And I feel like it was kind of, you know, maybe they were only number one for five minutes on the day that I bought them, but that was when I needed them.

DB: Did you end up leaving a review?

JHE: Well Dan, of course I did.

DB: What's your review?

JHE: I'm happy to read it to you from the Amazon site where it's still posted: "I bought these sweatpants as a defense against the time in my life when I was suffering from cold, of the literal and figurative kind. These sweatpants are shapeless. They're good for trudging. I wore them for some weeks to walk a dog. One morning I woke up and felt happier, and then I didn't need to wear the sweatpants every day anymore. But the time the sweatpants and I spent together was meaningful and important.

DB: A version of Jean's story first appeared on the website Racked.

Jean's also the author of the great new memoir, This Really Isn't About You.

If you have a story about how a brand played a role in your life, call us at 7-3-1-3 BRANDS or email us at household name at businessinsider.com.

CREDITS

DB: To hear Household Name without ads, sign up for Stitcher Premium at stitcherpremium.com/householdname and use promo code HOUSEHOLD for your first month free.

Please leave us a review and rating at Apple Podcasts. Five stars really helps other listeners find the show. And let us know what you think: you can email us at householdname@businessinsider.com

This episode was reported by Kate Taylor and me, Dan Bobkoff.

Anna Mazarakis produced this episode. She has never had a cup of coffee in her life, but she plans to have a PSL this year.

ANNA MAZARAKIS: For the insta, of course.

Our senior producer is Clare Rawlinson.

Mixing, sound design and original music by Casey Holford and John DeLore.

Our editor is Peter Clowney.

Our executive producers at Stitcher are Chris Bannon, Laura Mayer, and Jenny Radelet.

Special thanks to Maxwell Glick and his YouTube channel Mr Cheesy Pop for that Taylor Swift parody…. plus Eilis O'Neill, our intern Sarah Wyman, and our focus group of self-described basics: Corina Pintado, Graham Flanagan, Lauren Shamo, Maddy Conley, Deena Cohen, Amanda McKelvey, and Lindsey Updike.

Household Name ios a production of Insider Audio.