What the Hell Happened: Is the Stanley Tumbler Craze Unique?

Little girls burst into tears when they receive one as a Christmas gift, or get bullied if they don’t have the original one. Women dedicate walls in their homes to exhibit them or they line up outside of stores at 4 a.m. to purchase them. Stanley tumblers — or “Stanley Cups” — contribute to yet another water bottle trend that serves as an indicator for personality, status, and wellbeing — while evidently driving people crazy on the side.

With profits increasing from $70 million in 2019 to $750 million in 2023, the highly successful Stanley company can owe its popularity to recent changes — and a little bit of luck. The company has been around for over a century; until recently it was famous for its creator’s invention, a double-wall vacuum bottle made out of steel that soon became a favorite of laborers, campers, and even WWII pilots.

The tumblers weren’t doing so well after their launch in 2016 until The Buy Guide, a website that offers shopping recommendations, intervened in 2019 and sent influencer Emily Maynard a Stanley tumbler. The website’s creators also bought a large quantity of the Stanleys and resold them within a couple of days. In 2020, the new global president of the company, Terence Reilly, chose a new target audience: women. After giving the cup a colorful transformation by leaving behind the green color traditionally associated with the brand, and with influencers leading their promotion campaign, the cups became a hit.

While it is easy to treat the story of the Stanley tumblers as a unique success story woven together by luck and effective executive decisions, one must also take into account the broader role of TikTok and the fashion industry in the development of water bottle trends.

The success of Stanleys, just like that of Hydro Flasks during the 2019 VSCO Girl trend, is closely dependent on what is currently trending on social media platforms. WaterTok — the trend of making water taste like anything but water by adding things like syrup to it — skincare, pilates, and wellness are often presented by Lululemon-clad online figures who use the same sponsored products. These recurring themes coincide perfectly with another rising trend: the environmentally friendly lifestyle. All of these factors trending simultaneously made Stanley cups a sensation. However, there is an irony in this oversaturation of reusable water bottles, which were meant to reduce consumption; instead, Stanley keeps releasing limited edition collections and people keep buying them, some even building their own collections.

What is unique about products related to health, wellness, and saving the environment is the fact that consuming them makes people feel good about their actions. It’s hard to feel guilty when purchasing a water bottle because — unlike buying donuts or Shein clothing — these products promise to help the buyer become better: in this case, more hydrated, thus healthier, thus happier. Water bottles are not simply trending online; just like other everyday items such as lunchboxes, phone cases, and even hand sanitizer holders, they are entering the world of fashion. Even Vogue embraces waterbottles by publicizing designer ones, claiming in 2021 that “hydration is this season’s must-have accessory.”

Soon, yet another water bottle brand or a supposedly-healthy product will shake the world of TikTok and therefore the consumer’s world, leading people straight to the shelves of large chain stores. Instead, pausing, taking a sip from an old — maybe even scratched — water bottle and considering whether buying a Stanley is meaningful or sustainable is a better way of preserving one’s well being.