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ON THE FACE of it, the Stanley cup is unremarkable. It’s a 1.2 litre insulated bottle with a handle and straw. At £45, it is expensive and not particularly attractive. But something about it has driven people wild.
TikTok is obsessed, with videos of unboxings, reviews and shoppers storming the aisles to get their hands on one racking up millions of views. Customers are knocking each other over to grab a limited-edition version, with some even queuing at 3am. And in the A-list world, everyone from Adele to Olivia Rodrigo has been seen with one.
The release of a new colour is enough to start a frenzy. Fans camped overnight to get their hands on a red version from Starbucks in November. There are teenagers in tears of joy on TikTok receiving the Stanley for Christmas. How did we get here? The cups themselves are not new. The current iteration was released in 2016 and
Stanley has been making vacuum insulated cups since 1913. Previously, they were marketed to outdoorsy types, but the snowball began rolling in 2017, when a group of women running an online shopping blog, The Buy Guide, fell in love with the cups and urged their followers to buy one. Still, like all runaway trends, the level of madness around Stanley cups is difficult to justify.
It’s true, though, that something has shifted in recent years with hydration and, to be fair, I haven’t been immune to it. I can’t recall owning a water bottle until about five years ago, yet now I don’t leave the house without one, as though I’m at risk of dying of dehydration on a 30-minute bus journey.
I’m not alone. The global
