STANLEY CUP GOAL FOR KIDS
Bottle a status symbol among schoolgirl set
Navigating the trials and tribulations of middle-school popularity is something preteen girls know all too well, with status markers such as what sports and friend groups they’re part of.
Now, that includes what brand of water bottle they have.
The viral Stanley tumbler has become a symbol of popularity — and those who don’t have one are now subject to bullying, The Cut reported.
A 13-year-old named Dahlia wasn’t the popular girl at her Dallas middle school, having been the new girl last year, but when she walked into school with her Stanley cup, all of a sudden she was no longer invisible.
“Every day when I get into school at like 7:45 a.m., everybody comes over to me like, ‘Oh my God, I like your Stanley!’ or ‘It’s so cool, I want a Stanley just like yours!’ ” the eighth-grader said. “It makes me feel like I’m famous and being swarmed by paparazzi.”
Dahlia isn’t the only girl gaining popularity thanks to the Stanley Quencher Tumbler. Even elementary schoolers are in on the trend. “I’m, like, a little bit more popular now, and I’ve been getting more friends because of it,” Madalyn, a 9-year-old from Kentucky who owns five Stanleys, told The Cut.
But while Stanleys have the power to make a preteen girl feel like the Regina George of their school, not having one — or worse, having another brand — is social suicide. “I wouldn’t say any of them are actually my friends,” Dahlia noted of her new admirers. “They only talk to me in the morning when I’m holding my Stanley.”
In a viral TikTok, Dayna Motycka shared that her 9-year-old daughter was made fun of for not havname-brand ing a Stanley. For Christmas, her daughter got a $9.98 cup from Walmart that she thought was cute. “On the second day back to school after Christmas break . . . she’s just upset,” the mom said. “[Some of] the other girls . . . got Stanleys for Christmas and they made sure to let her know that [hers] is not a real Stanley, that this is fake and it’s not as cool.” Jamie Sherman told The Cut girls “laugh and point” at her 11-year-old niece in the hallways because her Stanley dupe isn’t real, even though it looks exactly the same minus the brand logo.
“Now, she doesn’t want to bring it to school and she doesn’t want to use it,” Sherman said.
A sixth-grade teacher from Mississippi told The Cut that about half of her students own a Stanley cup, which start at $35 and go up to $50.
“I wish I could have taken a picture today at lunch. At this one table, it was like every girl had a Stanley cup,” Nicole Walker said. “I asked one student, ‘Why did you want to get a Stanley?’ And she said, ‘Because everybody else had one, so I just feel like I needed to have one to fit in.’ ”
‘Peak Stanley’
According to Amazon data, the insulated 40-ounce Stanley Quencher Tumbler with a side handle and straw was a top-searched product this holiday season. Its insulation can keep a drink cold for hours, its lid rotates and its slim base can easily fit into a car cupholder.
But despite all the frantic buying, Casey Lewis, a youth consumer trends analyst, told Business Insider she thinks the hype is already dying down.
“They are absolutely on their way out. This is peak Stanley,” she proclaimed. “There’s no up from here!”