Recently, a coffee chain has made inroads into my neighborhood. It’s called LAP. I keep forgetting what that stands for. If it’s part of the brand strategy that people keep googling or ask ChatGPT what the letters mean, it’s working. I’ve just checked again. LAP stands for “Life Among People”. Ah. Frankly, for several weeks after I’d seen the first store, I was wondering what it was selling. I usually ride my bike around town, I’m too fast to take more than a cursory glance at the places I pass. Then one day my bike had a flat and I was forced to walk to the subway, and saw that LAP was selling coffee.

I have coffee in my blood (literally – my family has a Guatemalan branch that still grows coffee there), so I got curious.

LAP is based on minimalism. The logo is no more than a color and a font. Limited seating, small locations or lots of empty space, steel-and-concrete interiors. Fully automated machines and cashless payment minimize the amount of time or human interaction that’s not absolutely necessary to conducting the business of getting a beverage. Nothing there invites you to stay, read a book, write messages to your friends, or – lord forbid – strike up a conversation with a stranger. LAP, despite its name, isn’t about life among (real) people at all. It’s also not about coffee.

What LAP is really selling is itself. It’s selling a brand. Their customers are not connecting with each other, they are each connecting with the logo. Posting a photo of the coffee cup on social media seems quite a bit more important than drinking the actual coffee. The logo is part of Tiktok videos, the logo is part of coops with other brands. No one talks about whether the coffee is actually good.

Because LAP isn’t a coffee store, or a café. LAP is not a company. It’s an investment. LAP is a container. What’s in the container is inconsequential. LAP could be selling popcorn or wine, or marbles, as long as there is something in the container. They will not even have to change their name, or their logo. Neither of them is connected to what’s in the cup. Because what’s in the cup isn’t coffee. It’s content.

“Content” is interchangeable. Content isn’t connected to reality. It’s not good or bad. You can’t argue about it. It doesn’t matter whether it’s locally sourced, or made with love. The only thing that matters with content is efficiency and growth.

Here’s what content is also not. It’s not a story that moves your soul. It’s not a character that feels like a friend, or like your worst enemy. It’s not a series that you bingewatch, or that you savor episode by episode. It’s not a movie that makes you forget where you are, to gently release you into the world with an exquisite soundtrack over the end credits. It’s not an actor who sets your heart on fire.

Here, you can talk about good or bad. Does the dialogue convince you, does the script draw you in, does the setting reflect a world that you know, or whisk you away to a fantasyland that you wish existed for just a little while longer? Is it something you refuse to watch because it grosses you out? Because you think it goes too far? Or is your husband right when he says it needs to go exactly that far in order to prove its point?

In short, is it something that engages you?

Content doesn’t engage. Content is just what’s in the cup. By the time you’ve photographed the container and uploaded the image to Instagram, the content is cold. Don’t look for content. Don’t fixate on the container. It’s the coffee that matters.