Water is an essential part of life, being of utmost importance for the human body and occupying the majority of Earth’s surface. Humans require multiple liters of it a day, and MRHS students are no exception, a large portion carrying bottles of all brands throughout the school day. Many brands are available, but at the moment one is prominent in the water bottle industry: Stanley.
Formed in 1913 in Seattle, Washington, Stanley is an established brand with a variety of products. Their brand Stanley Black and Decker manufactures professional hardware tools like screwdrivers, cutting saws and tape measures, in addition, their main brand, Stanley 1913, produces vacuum-insulated, eco-friendly, steel bottles that have forever influenced the consumption of hot drinks.
For the majority of their corporate years, Stanley has been just another sustainable company with many products, but all that changed in late December of this past year when they experienced a spike in popularity.
On December 31, Stanley put forth two of their limited edition bottles, including one in pink and the other in red, available for purchase at Target. Due to the spotlight from Tiktok, these bottles became viral, and as a result were a major success for Stanley as people flocked to their local Target stores to buy the bottles before they went out of stock.
After a viral clip posted here on Tiktok received more than 60 million in support of Stanley, popularity soared. In that video a woman’s car is shown after suffering an accident. Her can is destroyed but her Stanley cup survived the accident. Stanley responded by buying her a new car and sending her a few new cups.
Aside from their sustainability and alleged fireproof nature, the most viral trail is their stylish looks.
“They keep my ice cold and they have better aesthetics than other cups,” sophomore Abby Allen commented.
Although there are many other brands in the market that offer similar insulation and have an attractive appearance, Stanley’s products have an edge over their competition because their bottles offer unparalleled stylistic versatility that allows the buyer to make the Stanley cup truly individualized.
“Stanleys are special because they have a lot of different color options to choose from that are cool and unique,” stated sophomore Polly Locket.
However, other students beg to differ about the cup’s advantages.
“Stanleys are really impractical because they leak a lot and the straw gets dirty really easily, however, they’re really practical at home because you can take a sip of water and it’s really quick to use,” junior Simran Singh explained.
Looking back at the history of water bottles, there has constantly been a steam of trends, especially with the emergence of Tiktok and the digital world. These trends eventually fade and a new bottle always comes to fill the craze.
For example, the nipple top bottles were popular between the 90’s and 10’s. They were bottles whose top was composed of firm plastic that the mouth wrapped around in order to drink from, and furthermore, were used most by school teams. Another old fad was plastic Gatorade bottles, which were popular during the 2010s especially for their use by student athletes. They were dark green, featured Gatorade’s logo at their center and had an orange flap that, similar to the nipple top bottles, was designed for the mouth to wrap around. Finally, Contigo lasted from the late 90’s to the mid 10’s. These bottles had a drinking flap connected to the bottom by a transparent plastic straw and, just like Stanley’s products, were vacuum insulated. However, the aforementioned brands are no longer as common as they used to be, and were eventually replaced by other trends.
During MRHS school hours, a great many students can be seen carrying reusable water bottles. Different bottles and brands lose their trendiness as time goes on, there still might be hope for Stanley bottles to maintain and gain success amid the company’s newfound fashionability.
