I’m going to bludgeon you with a Stanley cup

Gentrification, pink marketing and trend fatigue

Hi, I’m George Westcott. I was just in Chile for the last two weeks to escape the winter horror that Amsterdam has become. While I was there, my whole family celebrated Christmas like you do during the Christmas season. Before the rumour gets out, I did eat sheep testicle during my stay in Chile. Getting to the point, one of the presents that my mother gave me was a Stanley cup in a mint green color. I liked it but what had been missing in my radar was the Stanley Cup mania that had been going on at that time. For whatever reason my for-you-page had decided to spare me from the Stanley Cup craze that had hit mothers, teenagers, and TikTok influencers everywhere. Surprise, surprise! I now feel ashamed to walk around or be seen anywhere with my cup. Now, I have to comment on this before I go any further because I know my parents do read these. In essence, what I specifically describe is how the cup has been perceived culturally and the waves of TikToks that have been hitting our screens. I do love my present however. I was on the plane on the way back and the cup didn’t fit in my backpack and I had to walk around the airport with Stanley in hand. The shame I felt in terms of being possibly perceived as a TikTok-obsessed runt was disheartening, to say the least. I then began questioning certain elements of this specific cup. I think that it’s important to understand why I feel shame for the trend especially when I am so personally connected to the internet at large. Understanding the Stanley Cup as a cultural artifact aids in this. In addition, I would like to add my collection of thoughts regarding the cup.

1. Understanding the cup as a cultural artifact

So, I’ll follow the lead of my cultural analysis class that I took in college and begin. Y posing the cup as a cultural artifact so that we can properly discuss the surrounding cultural phenomena. In simple words, let’s analyze this fucker. If you don’t know, in late 2023 (that’s at least when the popularity reached wild heights), the Stanley Cup had a massive surge in popularity on TikTok after a viral video showed the cup still alive with ice inside after a car was stuck in a car after a fire. This viral video then launched the cup into the stratosphere, mainly popular with young girls and women. Videos later on showed crowds of people piling on to get their cups with fights going on in supermarkets in an attempt to get their bursting on social media. Now, before all of this happened, the Stanley Cup was mostly recognized as a cup made for workers with it being associated mostly with working-class men and men into physical activity. This shift specifically came with certain shifts in the fixation of the cup. Of course, the cup being alive after a car burnt down helped push the narrative of the cup being incredibly durable but also reliable. What is interesting however is that the later surge of the cup came along with the fixation of the cup as an accessory with their style and color being brought to the forefront. One of the larger fixations that were popular on social media was the limited edition Stanley cups and the specific color-coordinated pantries chock-full of the stainless steel beasts. 

Now, I don’t want to just read out the Wikipedia page but I do think that there is something to be said about the culture of gentrification and this being just another phase of the commodification of working-class culture. This has been very similar to the rise of Carhartt as a staple but expensive brand that is still essential in everyone’s wardrobe. In some way, people with money want to look like they don’t have money and hence, dress in a commodified form of working-class cultural signifiers. The Stanley Cup is an extension of this. However, the cup is only shown to differ in some regard. There is some shift from something from working-class life that is traditionally assumed as highly masculine (the cup being used as a symbol of masculine worker culture) being marketed to a primarily feminine audience. Of course, this isn’t the first time this has happened but there is a part of me that does think that it has not had as much of an effect as it has had with this cup. In some way, this is just another way that we gentrify and commodify the cultural elements and signifiers of the working class into a larger more consumerist basis of understanding. In addition to this, this is purely another wave of consumerist 

2. The culture of phasing out 

Now, I don’t think that the last chapter was very wild but I do think that it is essential in further writing on the subject. Now, a lot of people are defending the Stanley craze by centering the experience of women as a deflection. This has been a consistent defense of consumerist culture, fixating that any attack against wild overconsumption by centering it as an aspect of feminine existence, attacking is an attack on women. Now, in my opinion, this style of argument is sometimes warranted especially when women’s interests are consistently attacked and mocked by primarily men or women trying to distance themselves from other women. Now this critique is only valid if the fixation isn’t harmful and I truly believe that the Stanley craze does have some harmful elements within it. I think that the overconsumption of Durable work implements specifically demonstrates a shift in the way in which we are pushed to overconsume. 

The SHIEN wave of overconsumption fixated upon the buying of clothes that were intended to do so. The clothes that were made were made precisely for them to be over-consumed and bought out in droves. Why do I bring up the SHIEN craze? Aesthetically, the Stanley craze and the SHIEN craze are incredibly similar to some of the haul videos that I have seen in researching this topic. What I am trying to get at is that the concept of Stanley Cup hauls just feels strange. Aesthetically they are conceptually similar in style and purpose but the product is just swapped out. What clashes is the purpose that the Stanley Cup was made with. As mentioned earlier, the cup was made for work and hence something that is supposed to last a long time in the way that it can withstand a beating. This specific cup to a certain extent is what we are hoping for in product design for a sustainable future and to combat blatant and unrestricted consumerist culture. What feels so miserable about the Stanley Cup debacle is that it goes against my hopes and aspirations when it comes to said shift. The cup was commodified and the tiktokers went out and bought sixty. There is a part of me that appreciates when workwear and clothes that are meant to last begin becoming more popular. This is always a good sign in terms of combating wild consumerism and having things that last always means that you don’t have to buy as much of something. Of course, the previously discussed gentrification and commodification of working-class culture and cultural artifacts have their problems. What I specifically mean is that the approach to making items more and more durable and long-lasting is an essential fragment of combating mindless consumerism. What the Stanley Cup phenomenon demonstrated, however, is that a shift in product design, while helpful, does not solve the conflict. What is required is a complete cultural shift and creating and promoting a culture of accountability. 

What is great to notice, however, is that the vast majority of the reactions to the craze for Stanley Cups were relatively proper. While there is a ridiculous want and need for these cups with the girlies and their cupboards stocked full of blunt implements, there was an equal group of people calling out specifically how the product craze is engineered and promoted through social media. I think that it is essentially good that people can recognize that the insane stocking of cups is a bad thing and both not a healthy form of buying but also an unhealthy standard for younger social media goers who believe that this content is aspirational. What was strange was the defense. 

3. Shame and Pink marketing

Now the people defending the cup have done it like it’s king and country. I have seen people go on wild defenses of Stanley being some form of women’s interest. Now this has specifically clashed with the Starbucks boycott. Now to those living under a rock with two whole feet in your ears, throughout the Israeli raid of Palestine, we have seen community backlashes to those megacorporations and companies that are actively backing the state of Israel through its atrocities. One of the larger targets of the boycott was Starbucks. Now, it just so happens that Starbucks-branded Stanley Cups were and still are in incredibly high demand. Now there was a standoff, the ostensibly anti-capitalist Starbucks boycotters and the Stanley-obsessed TikTok moms. The main critique that the boycotters had was the promotion of Starbucks at a specific time when they were being boycotted and by proxy supporting a regime that was raiding Palestine. The tiktokers did bring a rebuttal. Now this specific rebuttal isn’t wholly unique to the boycotting crowd but more just a point of discussion as discussed by Clara of “Hmm That’s interesting” and Jessica Defino for “The Unpublishable” (the next section will be highly inspired by their writings especially the “no, calling out hyperconsumption is not sexist” article). A large point of defense and deflection proposed that the calling out of the fascination over Stanley Tumblers is akin to the reduction of women’s interests like Twilight, One Direction, and other girly media. Now, if it was a more chilled-out situation I would get behind this, the sexism inherent to the reduction to anything primarily female interest is an actual issue that needs accounting for. But that’s not the case. This especially goes double because of the A) Starbucks boycott and B) Insane lengths of hyper-consumerism that have been present throughout this trend. So if you needed me to say it, using sexism as a defense of hyperconsumption ain’t cool. 

Now, what we have to talk about is a certain shame that I feel regardless. While still against hyperconsumerism and the ways that it is demonstrated on TikTok through the Stanley Cup trend, there is still a part of me that feels cringe at the cup. I think that this exists on a level To explain myself, I think this happens to me every time there’s a new trend. I fear the day that influencers begin doing some future form of the renegade to Bjork’s Hyperballad. I have a true sense of dread every time that a new thing begins to trend that I will be caught up in it. Especially in the speed at which TikTok algorithms work, having something you are interested in being hit as a TikTok trend is a worry I always carry. Now, this isn’t a new situation to be in with the “I liked them before they were famous” line being cliché at this point. What is interesting is with the speed at which trends arise, you are very much forced to explain yourself as “I liked them before they were famous” more and more with the ridiculous amount of micro trends that arise. The fear of the media. The fear of needing to explain your interests not knowing if they’re in or out. Being countercultural, midcultural and mainstream carries the same fear with culture as a base speeding up to a pace faster than it’s ever been in our lifetimes. So when I walk with my Stanley Cup I have the sexist fear of being perceived as having an object commonly associated with 13-year-old girls, but also the strange uncertainty of being perceived as either being too in-the-loop or being out-of-the-loop. 

4. Conclusion 

The Stanley Cup is probably a fad. I completely recognize that. It is my first prediction for 2024 (a wild year to say tbh). I can only imagine the videos of some lab-grown white mom influencer throwing out her collection of 30 Stanley cups, all neatly color-coded in her pantry. I think that is where the issue lies. The Stanley Cup (if you have one or a product adjacent) is an overall net positive as they are easier to recycle and limit our consumption of single-use plastic water bottles. Now, is hoarding 150 cups and calling your content lifestyle content and something aspire to a net positive? No. Is the cup being made an expensive accessory that was originally tied to the working class kind of iffy? Yes. With any trend, tread responsibly and navigate through the culture by being aware. We normally consider media literacy something that is mostly tied to longer forms of media like film or TV. I think that to properly be able to navigate such a strange trend it is important to construct a proper way of understanding the media we consume especially when said media is trying to sell us something. I also think that it is okay to argue against hyper-consumerism, even if the hyper-consumption is girly. 

So go critique the Stanley Cup or smthn Idk I’m not your boss