Over the summer I bought a “Stanley 40 oz. Quencher H2.0 FlowState Tumbler” in the color “Eucalyptus,” which just so happens to match the color scheme of my dorm room. I bought a silicon boot and a straw topper with it.
I bought the water bottle because it’s trendy. It’s the most expensive water bottle I’ve ever purchased. 45 dollars? That’s insane. Who pays that much for a water bottle?
I guess I do. Society does. Millions of other people have bought this $45 water bottle just because we all collectively agree that it’s cool, that it’s trendy, a must have, that it’s in.
The worst part is that we all paid that money. Some of us pay more than others. I see people on TikTok who have these entire collections. My friend owns three. I bought mine in August on a whim because I just really wanted it. I told myself I would only buy it if they had this specific color, but regardless, it’s still one of the trendiest water bottles at the moment. So of course I wanted it. I wanted to be in on the trend and be a part of this Stanley cup community.
That’s what water bottles actually represent in our society. It’s not about the water itself, but the bottle it’s in. There are the plastic single-use water bottles that are horrible for our planet and you should not use them. They contaminate, they pollute. Yet, there’s large corporations doing the exact same thing on a much larger scale. They pollute more than the millions of Americans who drink out of plastic water bottles. We’re told to use reusable water bottles. Clearly, we still find a way to turn that into wasteful consumerism. I’ve accumulated so many of these reusable water bottles over the years, as we’ve gone through trend after trend, all while being given free water bottle after free water bottle. My mom and I actually went through our cabinets in August and recycled any water bottle that we had not touched in more than a year. We recycled them because we’re “helping to save the planet.”
Why do I have all those water bottles anyway? I don’t need them. This is my second expensive water bottle. I refer to my first one (my Hydroflask) as my “emotional support bottle” and I continue to use that one at school because, in my opinion, the Stanley is really inconvenient to carry around. Can you imagine that? I spent crazy money on something that I don’t even want to use. It leaks everywhere too. I had to buy a $9 Stanley leak stopper kit on Amazon just to prevent the water from getting everywhere.
At the end of the day, it’s not really about the water bottle. I surmise that it’s never about the water bottle. Now I just feel guilty for owning it. I really wanted it, but I didn’t need it at all. What I do need is a better appreciation for what I already have.