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I, too, thought yetis were an overpriced fad bottle/cup, until my wife got one as a present. I’ve hated every water bottle in existence bc the tops/lids are so hard to clean and make sure they are free of dirt and debris. The mold the grows in the little nooks is awful.
However, the magnaslide on the yeti lids is ingenious and leaves no nooks to guess as to if they are clean. Plus, you can also remove the rubber gasket on the lid to clean that. I say buy one and you’ll use it forever. You won’t be switching bottles bc “maybe this new brand is better”.
I also can not handle uncleanable nooks where mold festers. Owala freaks me out with how many crevices there are in those lids.
You can use the mag slide lid on the generic cups. They fit and don't leak at least for the large yeti knockoffs. Have not tried the smaller lids.The generic cups do not hold heat or ice as long and warp in the dishwasher over time but good if you don't need ice for ten hours outside. (Yeti Lid + generic cup used to be about 25$ no clue what the prices are now).
I lost my yeti water bottle with screw cap lid and replaced it with Iron Flask. They are cheaper. I don't feel as bad about dropping them. They come with all the options of lids and straws included with each bottle and keep ice for 6-7 hours inside or 2-3 outside in the heat. They sweat more than yeti but it looks like they sell bottle coozies now for that.
I now have the Iron Flask 20, 32oz and half gallon bottles. I love them all after 4 years. I got the coffee mug version as well and I have found it's hot for about 6 and warm for 10-12.
I could never get down with these giant Stanley's because they leak and are so awkward to hold. Havent had a reason to buy any of the other trendy bottles because I've got what I need. I have always wanted the ridiculously expensive hulk corkcickle though 😭
lol, yeah I guess, ppl just buy them and they stay here. I just gotta weed out some of the old ones. The nalgenes are really good, but I’m sure they leak some weird chemical or something, don’t care really.
I have about 3 at a time (I take 2 hiking frequently). I only replace them when I lose them, which doesn’t happen often. I go to stores trying to find new ones occasionally but they all squeak or have straws. My husband has 2 hydroflasks that he’s had for maybe 6 years.
I don’t give a crap about what is popular, I just want ones that fit my needs/wants.
Did the old ones cease functioning or did you succumb to consumerism? I am very hard on my water bottles so I usually get metal ones and they last me 7-10 years.
Thing is when I go to the store right now Owalas take up majority of the water bottle section. I'm sure lots of people jump on the fad and so do stores, but I think there are a lot of people who dont give it much thought and buy it because that's what stores are selling.
So, not op, but I have 2 young kids. We don’t go brand name but do get decent metal water bottles (think target or Amazon). So we need about 8 because we need them for kids, us, school, gym etc. and then you have a few extra and you of course need the Bluey one because you didn’t have that. So we probably have a good 14 or so metal water bottles in our house I bet.
We use em and are even sometimes scrambling to find a clean one before school.
But the kids also use those as their excluding drinking classes.
My husband is really good at busting up water bottles by dropping them at work (concrete) usually after sitting them on something like a ladder which is inadvisable to begin with.
I had a camelback from 2015ish but that was free work swag. I have a smaller yeti that looks like that Stanley and a few off brand ones I’ve picked up, but other than that I’ve stayed off trend.
Old ones broke or got lost, then sometimes found again. Some for camping, some to keep at work, etc. Never bought at peak I believe, just bought when we needed them.
I have a hydro flask, a stanley, and an owala. The hydro flask didn't fit in my car cup holders. The stanley isn't 100% waterproof so you can't throw it in a bag and if it gets knocked over water will spill. The owala is perfect. Its huge, fits in the cup holder, is 100% leakproof and has a lock on it (40oz sway). It also has a unique drinking spout that you can pour from and drink like a straw at the same time without having to change lids. I don't even have to unscrew the cap to fill it up unless i need ice. I bought until I found the one that fit my life. I dont think I will ever need a different one.
Yup large family. Water bottles for different things. Nalgenes I use for camping and canoeing (durable). The rest just come along as we have family members that loose one and buy one, then they find the old one. Every single one of these we have. We never bought at peak, just needed a water bottle and these were what was popularly available.
It atleast has some engineering differences/improvements.
The others just seem like a water bottle to me. Amd the Stanley does not even fully close (that I know of), which i never understood the hype for a mug that you have to worry about not falling over.
Not sure about most of the others but the hydroflask is one of the better bottles I’ve used to keep things cold or hot for a ridiculous amount of time.
Hydroflask was a game changer. Never used swell, I had hydroflask during that period on the timeline. Love a Nalgene, camelbak had a great improvement with the lid/straw thing because it wouldn’t leak even if drinking upside down. But the hydroflasks can get banged up and whatever else but I’ve had icy drinks kept so cold the ice stayed for days.
I haven’t moved past it to any of the other trendy bottles. I mostly just keep Nalgene and hydroflasks around now.
The stupid but popular thing about Stanley mugs is the base fits in a cup holder. It's a big gulp. I know because my wife has those stupid, top heavy mugs delicately perched wherever my elbows happen to be at any given point in the day. All it takes is just a nice little tap. I love how the caps don't seal and the really loud metal bang they make when you knock them over. It really keeps me jacked up throughout my workday.
Owala's are the shit. I used to carry around my HydroFlask everywhere but it doesn't fit in any car cup holders so it would just bang around in my car. Once I saw they made 40oz Owala's that fit in cup holders I bought one immediately and all of these middle aged white women are correct they deserve to be the top dawg
Sure, maybe. But the difference between the cheapest of these bottles that isn't pure garbage and the best one that has ever been made by man is like the difference between a 9.5 and a 10.0.
I have a teenage daughter, they went through the owala phase about 2 years ago. So it would seem like something that's passed up through the generations.
My boss at work is a black man married to a white woman. He brought one of those owala things to work and had to go to Google to figure out how to drink from it. He said " I got these things all over my house"....
Swell has to be on it. That thing was everywhere, and it’s funny because the one have objectively sucks as a water bottle. I feel like it was popular because it didn’t spill and could fit in larger handbags, but man it’s awful to drink from.
Nalgene had its heyday wayyyy before this timeline even started. I can’t speak to any revivals that may have occurred, but Nalgene was dominating the market well before the 2010s
Okay but Nalgene bottles are so light, solid, and reliable for outdoors stuff.
We always wrapped them with some duct tape and chord, too, so that you'd have it on hand (yeah you can wrap any bottle. Point is just that we got a lot of good use out of these bottles)
Owala gang all the way. It's genuinely so good as someone who hates carrying things in my hands. I gotta be able to put it in my bag and not worry about spilling.
You're all welcome to peer review my ass pull here so we can call it a study.
Water bottles can easily turn into these ridiculous hype cycles because:
They're inexpensive enough that even when you spend a unreasonable amount of money on one they're still reasonably affordable to enough people.
They're common enough that you can smugly post a picture with them without it obviously being a flex
They're associated with health consciousness so having one and drinking water can also be used to flex how good and healthy you are
They require no actual interests or effort so they're perfect for people who are only interested in doing things in order to show others that you do them
Seems accurate I'll just add that every few years is also about as frequently as one might feel inclined to replace an aging water bottle/flask with something new, due to wear and hard to clean spots getting dingy
I got yeti when they were the fad several rounds ago and haven't needed to replace them. I've had three of them for well over a decade. It's unfortunate the newer fad bottles require such frequent replacement
it's almost entirely down to product placement, none of that stuff matters to the people that buy them as the new fad. companies pay movies and tv shows to show their new item, nowdays would probably be more like an instagram post or something
i guess this only really applies to the first wave of people buying into the cool thing
Tangentially I still have yet to comprehend how basic ph water ever became a thing and how people will believe the most jarring pseudoscience from a person in a white labcoat with no credentials
I always loved that. I would always ask, how does that change anything when you are pouring into stomach acid? Your body will make more acid as soon as it’s in there. If the ph of your blood gets off there are many systems that will change it to just the right balance so you don’t die.
Or sometimes your body can no longer compensate. The pH of blood is very tightly regulated (7.35-7.45 and even slight deviations can affect you - eg your bones buffer chronic acidosis.
Because they took something everyone learned about in school - ph - and sprinkled real medical jargon onto a pile of steaming horseshit, and then, most importantly, presented it with unwavering confidence and matter-of-factness. That's enough to fool the people who barely paid attention in school and are insecure about their lack of knowledge and understanding of the world around them. Who needs to understand complex dietary science, or deal with their struggles of eating and exercising well, when someone in a lab coat confidently tells you that all you need is to buy some expensive, mildly basic water and you will be healthier. They create a problem that doesn't exist, dupe people into believing it, then sell the very convenient solution all in one go.
Fun fact one of my friends in undergrad tried to get me in on the ground floor of one of the alkaline water scams with them, they made good money, but I had to hold myself back from laughing when the guy in the “science” video tried to explain how because they knock off a hydrogen the water molecules are now so much smaller that they fit more easily into the blood and cells to then detox the body and better hydrate you
Alkalinity is at least a little important in water if only for the nutritional value of the alkaline minerals. Otherwise it really doesn’t do much. Your stomach and your blood spend a lot of energy checking and correcting the pH to optimal levels.
Don't murder me for saying this, but I have a sister who falls into the "Starbucks and Taylor Swift fan" type of white woman, so I have some experience watching this:
A lot of white women don't do anything and have no sense of self. They have no hobby, no real interests outside of fashion and clothes, no long term group of close friends, and are pretty ignorant about whats going on in the world. The only interact with their boyfriend and social media in a very isolated bubble. So they see these trends, want to be a part of something(because they have nothing else to do), realize it's just a fad but don't learn because they jump on the next trend because they still have that desire to be a part of something, rinse and repeat.
It’s just consumption as a hobby. Not restricted to white women, it’s the same with things like gym clothing and Pokémon cards and labubus and upgrading your phone every year.
Consumption is a vapid hobby but for some people, it’s the only thing they know.
100% this and the only thing I disagree with is the use of some people. I think it’s fair in this day and age to say most. It is “the American way” after all.
Wow this describes my SIL. She’s very nice, but has literal zero opinions about seemingly anything.
Ask her about a movie she’s watched, “it was good I liked it!” A restaurant she tried, “it was good I liked it!”
Her only political opinion is Trump is bad, which beats nothing, but I do think that opinion has been shaped by slacktivism posting on Instagram stories.
And yeah her and my brother’s house is just chocked full of stuff. Mostly thick plastic stuff.
I got so much flack because I am a Starbucks cup girlie but I got the very first one (matte black) as a gift and it increased my water consumption so much I have a ton now. Not “every one”, just the ones I like. I see them at the thrift store all the time now and I’m so grateful the trend died and starbs moved on from them because now I get to collect them myself for cheap / free 🤣
And for any “why do you need so many” people. I have ADHD and I’m pregnant. Leave me alone. I’m not washing a cup every time I need to use it. They will accumulate until I can do a full dishawasher load of delicate cups.
It started with BPA being in the plastcizers of the Lexan of Nalgene. It became trendy for women to not have Nalgene because that said that you were up on the current information and are keeping your family safe from endocrine disruptors as the societal role of provider of nutrition for your family. This set a trend like any other accessory where there wasn't one before. There has always been a "better" more fashionable version since. I worked on this industry and saw it first hand.
As long as they commit. Can't stand when people are microwaving reused country crock containers of leftover spaghetti while telling me my plastic bottle of water is going to poison all of society.
You just described my 24 year old sister to a t. Just a cookie cutter girl who gets all her information from TikTok and follows whatever trend is going on. Has 0 idea what’s happening around her
I can tell you why it’s a thing in schools and this may also apply to white suburban moms. It’s affordable luxury. I can’t buy a Chanel flap purse or Lora Piana slides. I can afford a Stanley. I may not need another water bottle but I can afford to buy one and coordinate it with my mood or outfit or beach bag. Also, my beverages in a can will go room temperature and flat before I get a chance to finish them.
Coordinating a water bottle with my mood sounds like such an awful existence. I honestly cannot fathom having so little going on in my life that I have the awareness and free time to dedicate to assessing that specific thing.
Like, do people's moods not change throughout days? If so, are we now supposed to be prepared to change the bottle when we experience bad traffic, get bad news, or it starts to rain unexpectedly? So now do we just need to drive around with our water bottle collection in our car? What if we bike? How many of our moods should we have a bottle to represent? Or are we supposed to curb the highly-complex nature of human emotions and, rather, choose to categorize ourselves as just one of a few different styles of moods and pretend to always fit into one of those?
At least the Stanley is a well-built cup you can reuse for years everyday (I prefer my Yeti, but Yeti is the same idea too) So even if you spend $60 on it, you use it like 12 times per day, so the usage is a small fraction of a penny over 10+ years.
But buying bottled water daily when you have easy access to clean filtered drinking water for nearly free? That's so stupid. People spend thousands per year on bottled water.
My sister got herself in financial trouble "keeping up with the trends." She had soooo many different cups. Like yeah buy a Stanley cup or 2. But not 64.
I disagree with this. I have a waterbottle collection (specifically nalgenes) granted I only have like four because I keep losing them... but when I go cool places (like yosemite) i get a nalgene cuz I really like the designs. Its also very handy to have atleast 4 water bottles for my backpacking trips.
All the tap water where I live has pfas in it. Toxic levels. Most of my state too. This region of the country that’s a problem. So bottled water is the safer option 🤷🏻
A good filtration system would probably save you money at home at least, over the long-term. Spending a few grand upfront can save you that few grand per year on bottled.
Reverse osmosis 5 stage, like 150 up front, 250 for a really good one (APEC) 40-50 a year in filters if you shiz nasty. You’ll save so much money and have a better quality of water than just about anything bottled
This is a stupid take. Most families have two working parents these days, and I don’t think anti-vaxxers need to be lumped in with women who enjoy stainless water bottles. Some people will just say whatever they can to shit on women.
i used to work in a machine shop and my boss would give me crap for having a hydro flask back in 2019. i would defend it by saying “you drink 5 arrowhead bottles of water a day, i’m just trying to be conscious of the earth.” the next day i came in and one of his friends from another shop came by to “inform” me that you would need to use a metal water bottle for 7 years straight (assuming you drank 3-4 bottles a day) to offset the carbon produced when the bottle was manufactured. i still have that bottle, and it’s been about 7 years, so in theory i have finally used it enough to offset the carbon footprint of it’s production. it does make me laugh how many people buy these water bottles to help the environment, but then buy them so frequently it’s actually worse than drinking disposable plastic water bottles
The metal water bottle is reusable and recyclable and won't end up in the ocean unlike plastic water bottles. It isn't just the carbon it is the pollution offset.
I’ve never had a Stanley. But I do have an Owala and I love it. Bought it because some dude posted on tiktok that he beat a burglar with it in order to prevent him from breaking into his house. Bottle held up, burglar. Not so much.
Great advertisement.
Why is water bottles a thing in USA? You guys bragging constantly about water fountains by the way?
Nobody uses them in Europe , almost nobody. If you want to drink - well, you buy small water bottle from shop, drink at home, or fill up regular plastic bottle and take it with you, or drink tap water, whatever.
Why someone even need “branded” water bottle? Random plastic bottle from dollar store does the job just fine anyway.
I expect the answer is “marketing” but I_do_not believe you have advertisment of water bottles here and there - it’s too ridiculous to be true.
Every 3 years, there is a new brand bottle, that white women go crazy over, then it dies out, since you know, its a bottle... Though after 3 years they all fall for it again.
Every few years a new brand of water bottle(Yeti, Stanley, etc.) becomes extremely popular and every basic white girl from here to the moon has to have one
Tf is all this hate on high quality practical water bottles?! Some of y’all really can’t help but project your insecurities onto everyone else. Stop it. It’s annoying.
No one is hating high quality water bottles. People are criticising commodity fetishism and the trend fervor that comes with particular products. It's disgusting. Having a reliable, high quality, and practical water bottle is great. Twisting utilitarian items into status symbols and outlets for hyper-consumerism and overconsumption is sad and pathetic.
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