Okay, I admit it — I perceive the attraction of the 40-ounce Stanley Quencher. It’s, objectively, a superb cup that holds a ton of water and retains it chilly for hours. What I don’t perceive, although, is the consumerist compulsion to decorate these hulking consuming vessels with an more and more deranged array of cup equipment.
You’ve in all probability seen the movies. They often go somewhat one thing like this: “Pack my Stanley with me,” reads the textual content overlaying a TikTok video during which a younger girl straps a tiny little backpack onto her cup. She fills the backpack with lip balm and individually wrapped hygiene wipes, then affixes a teddy-bear-shaped cap over the opening of the cup’s straw. From her freezer, she pulls out a three-part ice mildew designed particularly for the Stanley tumbler and dumps the frozen cylinders into the cup. She then drops two vitamin tablets right into a tiny plastic capsule case that snaps straight onto the deal with. Possibly she snaps a snack tray designed to suit across the cup’s exterior on prime. Solely then is she able to go on her “sizzling lady stroll.”
This second appears like an inflection level within the Stanley accessorizing craze. A seek for “Stanley cup equipment” on Amazon returns round 8,000 outcomes, together with ornamental silicone “boots” to guard the underside of the cup, numerous straw cowl designs, slings and backpacks designed particularly to accommodate the cup, and ornamental carrying straps. All instructed, it’s simple to spend round $100 — or greater than double the unique value of the cup — adorning your Stanley.
Cups, and earlier than them, water bottles, have lengthy been a method for us to specific ourselves. That’s what you had been doing whenever you adorned your college-era Nalgene with stickers, and it’s what you’re doing now whenever you purchase a Hydro Flask or Yeti that matches your bag. What’s completely different about Stanley cups, although, is that they’ve spawned a whole cottage trade of equipment that don’t actually appear to make the cup extra practical. These straw covers aren’t water-tight, uncovered snack trays spill, and ice works the identical it doesn’t matter what form it’s in.
But, on Instagram, it doesn’t actually matter if these equipment work — or work effectively — so long as they contribute to the specified look.
Presumably, there are some folks watching these movies who’re concerned with really shopping for these things. The “decorate my Stanley” development is accessible to the aspiring influencer, and even simply the one who needs all the things they personal to be “aesthetic” (it’s lots simpler to purchase a few Stanley equipment for $30 on Amazon than it’s to purchase an costly purse). Nevertheless it wouldn’t shock me if the backlash to this style of video was fueling their recognition simply as a lot. The overwhelming majority of feedback are disapproving, many noting the brazen glorification of consumerism on show. On some degree, the “pack my Stanley” creators are leaning into the hate-watch, refusing to acknowledge their critics whereas piling increasingly more rubbish onto their cups. “Rage-baiting” is a decidedly efficient approach to drive engagement on social media platforms, in any case.
However consumerism and waste apart, the Stanley cup equipment development is miserable as a result of it’s visually uninteresting. These aren’t designer sneakers or a bag — each of which may very well be thought-about a kind of wearable artwork — they’re simply mass-produced rubbish that you simply connect to the facet of a cup. A minimum of whenever you had been spackling your water bottle with stickers, you could possibly select designs made by native artists that had been stunning or expressed a perspective. Now, it’s only a endless array of very comparable trying silicone and plastic equipment offered by way of Amazon and Temu that can finally find yourself in a landfill when the Owala Free Sip or another cup comes alongside to depose Stanley from the tumbler throne.