Exploring Competition in Niches and Sustainability in Consumer Behavior

As any Pacific Northwest teen from the ‘90s and early 2000s who carted a Nalgene around campus can tell you: WATER BOTTLE CULTURE IS NOT NEW. As pretty much any Grandpa or Boomer Dad can tell you: NEITHER IS STANLEY. But the demand for Stanley Tumblers (and, just as important, the inflated, often misogynistic conversation around it?) That’s (sorta) new. Like everything we talk about on this show: it’s complicated.

For today’s episode, we invited Amanda Mull back to the show to unpack the so-called Stanley Tumbler “obsession,” the relatively novel fascination with hydration, and why every kid has to have a water bottle at school. You might not think there’s that much to talk about when it comes to water bottles, but this one’s a whole lot of fun and as always, Amanda is a font of consumer behavior knowledge. (And make sure to check out Amanda’s first appearance on the pod, exploring why do clothes suck now??)

Show Notes:

• Amanda’s piece on Stanley Cups in The Atlantic (gift link)

• Amanda’s 2019 piece on millennials and fancy water bottles (gift link)

• The TMZ video of the argument in the Target line, which you hear at the start of this episode

• The model of Nalgene we had in my family for hiking (???)

• The great Decoder Ring episode on “the invention of hydration”

• Melody wants everyone to rewatch this clip from Parks and Rec, in which Pawnee citizens use water fountains

• Virginia Sole-Smith’s piece on diet culture and Stanley discourse is also worth the read (paywalled)

• Just one example of what a Stanley collection looks like

• An official Owala TikTok on how to clean the damn thing

• Find all of Amanda’s work here and here’s one of my favs on where your returns actually go

We’re currently looking for your questions for future episodes about:

• Specific questions for a romance author (already scheduled, she’s awesome!) and romance booksellers (send us your recs!)

• The weird TikTok trends on your specific FYP

• What’s the deal with JEANS right now (alternate title = Jeans: Help)

• Sephora Teens and teen skincare/makeup culture

• How we talk about the royals today

• Beyond Ballerina Farm [and is there such a thing as too much tradwife discourse? How do we critique but also not celebritize?]

• WHAT CELEBRITY IMAGE SHOULD WE UNPACK NEXT?

• Online shopping culture, including but not limited to people’s reliance on reviews and/or compulsion to leave reviews

• The cultural force that is nostalgia (especially interested in how it functions in different generations)

• Anything you need advice on!

• You can submit them (and ideas for future eps) here (and here’s the subscriber-only priority form)

For today’s discussion: What was your first water bottle? And how has your thinking on hydration changed over the years?