It’s a familiar scene in the United States: a group of shoppers swarms a shelf to get their hands on whatever product is there. This time, though, the shelf is in the middle of Target, lined with red and pink Stanley cups and a group is grabbing them running away, all captured in a now viral TikTok video. “There’s a limit of two per guest,” someone yells in the background, but everyone ignores them and fills their arms with as many as they can fit.
As long as mass-consumerism has been a part of western culture, a bunch of people rushing (and shoving) to get their hands on a popular product has been a thing. And yet, the craze over Stanley, the super-popular cup brand making tall, colorful tumblers, has seemingly baffled those who haven't bought in.
On TikTok, there are millions of views on videos tagged #stanleycup, and according to CNBC, the company's revenue has increased by nearly $700 million in just the last few years. This is no small part thanks to young people, especially women, buying and collecting the cups en masse. "The brand really shifted from marketing mostly to men to women now," Shelley E. Kohan, a retail management professor at Syracuse University, told the New York Times this week.
On social media posts of people showing off their collections (some people have dozens) or walking into stores to find the cups, you'll find comments asking, "Why is this a thing?" or remarking, "I don't get it," "and "Can someone explain this to me like I'm five?"
Well, it's actually not that complicated.
Some of the surprise about the brand's popularity may come from its original target audience. Stanley was founded in 1913 when the founder, William Stanley Jr. "fused vacuum insulation and the strength of steel in one portable bottle," according to the brand website. The technology, which keeps cold things cold and hot things hot, made it perfect for workers who were outside all day.
Recently, though, the company shifted its marketing and the cups have gone from a useful tool for laborers to a status symbol largely among women and young people. According to CNBC, in 2019, blogger Ashlee LeSueur saved the "Quencher" (the straw cup with a handle you’re most familiar with) from being discontinued when she bought 5,000 to sell on her website The Buy Guide. Soon after, former Crocs Chief Marketing Officer Terence Reilly took over as Stanley’s president, saw what LeSueur did to sell to her audience, and partnered with her to make the cup a must-have for a whole new audience.
Fast forward to now, the cups now function as both a vessel for hydration trends and as a must-have accessory to wear to school, the gym, or out shopping. Videos of holiday gift exchanges in December show young people jumping and screaming as though they had just received a new puppy, but really, it's a 64 oz. pastel cup. Other videos show people rushing to Target and waiting in line to be the first to get their hands on a limited edition pink Starbucks collaboration that launched exclusively at Target in January. That collaboration, originally $45, sold out and is now on resale sites like Poshmark for up to $200.
While the popularity of a practical cup may seem random (if not absurd) to some, it's not a new phenomenon. It's the same reason that in the late-1990s, Beanie Babies, a useless plush collectible toy, had people lining up for a chance to get a new drop. Or, more recently, MSCHF's impractical red boots had lines around the corner filled with young shoppers wanting to buy in. Value is often determined not by the product itself or the price tag, but by the fact that a whole bunch of people have it. Plus, as consumer psychologist Matt Johnson, Ph.D. tells Teen Vogue, water bottles have a particular way of signaling that you are caring for yourself and that you're up on wellness trends – something very popular on social media.
"If you have a Stanley water bottle, you're kind of signaling that you're very in, and you've got your finger on the pulse," Johnson explains. He adds that the cups are more than just a product to show off because you can tailor your content around it by showing off whatever drink you're adding into it, or highlighting your morning routine. "People buy water bottles for all sorts of reasons, but I think one of the big reasons that it led to such a social contagion is because it allowed people to engage and create these videos in a way they wouldn't be able to if they're just talking about the product." He also adds that the price point ($60 for a 64 ounce Quencher) has an "implicit competition" of who has, as Johnson explains it "the audacity and ability to buy in like that.
In the same way that fashion and beauty trends function as ways for us to belong, a mug can do the same. "There's an element of it that at the moment, it feels very exciting, and at the moment, it feels like you are part of something," Johnson says. "We are in a loneliness epidemic, and people seek belonging in non-traditional ways. It sounds silly for many people, but being part of a trend and being part of this movement where lots of people you see online are doing it provides some semblance of belonging."
But like any trend, Stanley cups will surely fade out of style, and something new will take its place. Buying into something just because it's popular is a fruitless endeavor and just contributes to a cycle of mass consumption – especially when one functional cup turns into a haul of cups. If you like the cup and use it, great, but if you're buying in to be part of something, it won't do much in the long run. "It just makes you sort of feel good at the moment, and then it will peter off, and there will be something new," Johnson concludes. "And so it's not really an enduring form of social connection."