In October 2014, a fake news site’s claim that Starbucks used semen to add “flavor” to its drinks circulated heavily, covered in our original Fappuccino article on 20 October 2014. The outlandish “report” originated from a web outlet that openly admits to inventing stories for humorous reasons, but that didn’t stop the tale from making its way around the Internet after

endless reposting by grossed-out readers.

The rumor appeared to have died down until 5 November 2014, when New York City-based Pastor James David Manning of Harlem posted a video to his “Manning Report” YouTube channel and broke wide open a nearly month-old debunked claim that no reasonable person had believed from the outset.

Working under the fallacious logic that sites like the New York Times refused to cover the story (rather than the more plausible and entirely inconvenient and boring conclusion that it never happened), Manning launched into a bizarre tirade about sodomites exchanging bodily fluids in Starbucks outlets across the United States, spreading Ebola, and ejaculating into the lattes:

Manning was firm in his belief about this phenomenon, stating that:





[Protesters] had a big bucket of Starbucks coffee. They said that this church is a hate church, and that I’m a hate preacher. Starbucks is a place where these types frequent and a lot of body fluids are exchanged there. But the thing that I was not aware of is that there has been information that has been released [about] what Starbucks was doing, they were taking specimens of male semen, and they were putting it in the blends of their lattes. Now, this is the absolute truth.





Why would Starbucks put semen in coffee in the first place? Manning offered a very thoughtful explanation for that, too:





My suspicion is that they’re getting this semen from sodomites. That’s what my suspicion is. My suspicion is that semen, like cord blood, has millions and millions of little zygotes in it, and it flavors up the coffee. And it makes you think you’re having a good time drinking that cup of latte with the semen in it.





Predicting the imminent closure of Starbucks locations following an FDA investigation that isn’t underway, Manning surmised semen in Starbucks drinks was just the tip of the corporation’s bodily fluid fixation:





Starbucks will be found to be perverting its customers and perverting human sexuality. As if drinking Starbucks is some sort of a sacrificial ritual bath where they kill the innocent babies and drink their blood in some of these meetings that are had by these fraternal or sorority groups. Starbucks has, for years, been using sexual fluids to prosper at their businesses, and the truth is now coming out.





The weekend before Manning’s video was published, protesters targeted his ATLAH church in Harlem over comments the Pastor had previously made about gay people and Ebola. The demonstrators distributed Starbucks coffee during their protests.