All over the world something strange is happening
coffee shops everywhere are starting to look the same.
We're in a coffee shop in Brooklyn and it has a look you probably recognize
hanging light bulbs, natural light, exposed wood, potted plants
This look has started to travel.
We went to four coffee shops on four continents to understand why.
And there's a reason that it's happening right now.
I'm Preeti Varathan, this is Quartz.
— And I just started seeing that whether I was in New York or LA or Berlin or Beijing
or kind of any city...
Kyle Chayka is a reporter who writes about design.
and a few years ago he started noticing this trend.
— Each city had its own version of this generic cafe
it was this kind of combination of
reclaimed wood and Edison bulbs and big windows.
How did this happen?
Well, the story starts with something we're all familiar with
Starbucks
They created this idea that coffee could be a classier commodity than it was before.
Starbucks taught Americans that coffee wasn't just fuel.
That coffee shops could be a place where people eat and drink and slow down.
Starbucks made coffee a luxury experience.
We will give you a tray.
We will give you sparkling water with everything.
We want it to be a full experience.
And as Starbucks went global it spread that expectation around the world.
Meanwhile in the late 2000s in the U.S.
a design trend is growing that really values original materials
and authenticity and rawness.
— And that kind of bleeds into the Brooklyn culture
that's starting to emerge around 2006.
And then that hits right into the financial crisis
which draws everyone's eye back to these Brooklyn hipster nostalgic look
which kind of was super lo-fi.
— As you enter in our cafe you can feel...
wood, concrete, steel and light.
And while it's debatable where this look actually originated.
it comes to be associated with one place.
Brooklyn, New York.
— It's a very New York, Brooklyn-y vibe.
And then something happens that allows this look to spread around the world.
— Silicon Valley suddenly becomes a huge force in cultural life.
Visual social media becomes a major part of our day-to-day lives.
— Instagram I think was the first major social media platform to focus almost solely on images.
So it kind of created this internet culture of taking and sharing photos in real time.
— I came here because the blogger posted some photos when she was in Paris
and I really like the vibes of the coffee shop.
— And so it creates this homogenized aspiration.
Everyone aspires for the same symbols of luxury at the same time.
As that Brooklyn look proliferates across social media
it gets refined down to its most Instagram-able elements;
a nostalgic stripped back luxury minimalism.
— Those digital spaces are really amenable to the minimalist aesthetic
because the web is kind of empty and blank anyway and
you want these like super clean images that only have a few objects in them
because they're more legible on a screen.
That's when you start to see the rise of the luxury minimalists vibe.
That's how coffee shops around the world came to look the same.
But if you ask Kyle this is just the beginning.
Because it isn't just coffee shops around the world that are starting to look the same.
Social media has changed whole neighborhoods too.
— Technology and social media is shaping the physical world.
In places with these kinds of coffee shops,
mini "Brooklyns" are popping up.
— Bandra is also called the "Brooklyn of Mumbai".
The minimalist Brooklyn coffee shop look probably won't be the last global design trend.
And places around the world might start to look more and more the same.