Can coffee get you high? Guming's employee video controversy, explained

Guming apologized and removed videos showing store employees wearing cardboard signs listing offenses such as forgetting straws, missing expiry labels, or knocking over tea containers, with hands cuffed using cup holders. The clips spread on Xiaohongshu and Douyin and drew widespread criticism over whether the format mocks workers during busy order periods, and the company also distributed a thousand free vouchers.

Staff errors during order surges are typically handled through internal reminders or minor penalties, which is why many viewers read the videos as staged jokes rather than real discipline. The dispute instead centered on official accounts amplifying the content, and on whether public shaming belongs in workplace humor at all, a question the apology did not fully settle.

During peak periods of exploding orders at tea beverage stores, staff inevitably make small mistakes like forgetting to include straws, neglecting to affix expiry date labels, or knocking over tea containers—usually resulting in just internal reminders or minor penalties. However, after videos of employees from some Gu Ming stores wearing placards and playing along with memes spread on social media, they sparked widespread outrage among netizens due to scenes showing employees with "crime" cardboard signs hung around their necks and hands cuffed with cup holders. The controversy centers on whether this form of mimicking public shaming respects workers and whether it was appropriate for official accounts to participate in posting. Gu Ming subsequently responded that the videos borrowed from popular platform memes, has taken down the related content and apologized, and also distributed a thousand free vouchers.

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When tea beverage stores are hit with a flood of orders, busy staff inevitably get flustered, and mistakes like forgetting to give out straws, failing to properly attach expiry labels, or knocking over tea containers happen more or less. These oversights can indeed add to the chaos and frustrate people, but most are unintentional errors, typically resolved after a few criticisms or some performance deductions.

However, recently, a short video related to Gu Ming staff on Xiaohongshu has caused a huge stir among netizens. In the footage, one employee's hands are cuffed with paper cup holders, and a cardboard sign hangs around her neck reading "Crime of Forgetting to Add Straws." The two colleagues beside her are dressed similarly, only with the text on their signs changed to "Crime of Missing Expiry Labels" and "Crime of Knocking Over Tea Containers."

Similar content can also be seen on Douyin, where staff wear cardboard signs around their necks listing their "crimes," and some even read out their "offenses" in front of the camera, with the faint sound of laughter from the person filming. Many netizens feel that the staff get along well and can take jokes, which is why they gather to film these daily goofy videos and post them on social media to amuse everyone.

Some consumers also believe that the "crimes" mentioned in the videos are just minor slip-ups that staff easily make at work. Punishing these small mistakes with things like bonus deductions seems overly harsh. A somewhat joking disciplinary method like wearing a placard for public display doesn't harm employees' vital interests and helps them remember the lesson to avoid repeating it.

However, more people admit that they couldn't laugh at all when seeing the workers in the videos, believing that such meme videos are neither humorous nor funny, but instead make viewers furious.

Netizens pointed out that in the past, when denouncing landlords and others, people were made to wear cardboard signs around their necks stating their crimes and paraded in public. For the individuals involved, this was an extremely disrespectful and humiliating practice that only brought shame and embarrassment. It is truly baffling and infuriating that workers would treat such a disrespectful act as a fun meme.

What angered netizens even more was that some of these videos were posted by certain official accounts of Gu Ming. Many angrily commented: "Gu Ming, what do you take us workers for?????" "The shackles that laboring people took off, you Gu Ming put them back on, right?" "Gu Ming, this kind of marketing isn't funny at all."

Some analyzed that Gu Ming's employees are mostly young people familiar with popular memes on platforms, and they might have used these memes in daily banter and short video shootings as personal actions.

But Gu Ming tacitly allowing official accounts to post such meme videos on public platforms to attract attention and traffic is seen by netizens as highly inappropriate, showing disrespect for hardworking employees and causing discomfort and anger among some viewers.

This afternoon, Gu Ming's official Weibo responded, explaining that the "meme" videos on Xiaohongshu borrowed from the creative ideas of Douyin platform hot memes "Simp Crime" and "Double Cup Holder Handcuffs," combined with store work scenarios, and were acted and filmed by branch employees and store staff.

The official apologized for the misunderstanding caused by the video and has requested the Guangdong branch account to take down the related videos immediately. Related videos posted by store accounts on Douyin have also been removed. Additionally, the official stated they will distribute a thousand free vouchers as an apology.

Image sources: Xiaohongshu, Douyin, internet

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The above content is compiled by CoffeeHunters, a coffee news website.