I’m sure I wasn’t the only one who wasn’t surprised, when scrolling on my FYP earlier this week, to see that a new “must-have” item was on the market from one of the United States’ most successful chains, Starbucks. It was as if the internet had all collectively decided to come together to bombard its audience with the idea that everyone needed this new glass bear cup called the Bearista.
Does anyone even remember what a Stanley cup is, or a Labubu? The answer is no, because they have filled the shelves of every Goodwill across all 50 states, forgotten. Scroll after scroll, it painfully became apparent how out of touch people have drifted from reality. We have reached a point where full grown adults were spending the night outside Starbucks locations and filming hauls like they had just won a million dollars. What if I told you they won bigger? Out of curiosity and after watching practically thousands of videos, I decided to check out Ebay to see how much they were being resold for. $3,000,000. $3,000,000?! I washed my eyes out in the sink for five minutes and picked up my phone again, but nope, it was indeed five extra zeros slapped onto how much these cups retail for. Reselling a cup for millions when you bought it for $30 is diabolical, not just because the item isn’t worth that much but because it makes people think it’s worth so much. This is for a CUP that looks like the honey containers from Trader Joe’s, this is for a CUP that can’t even fit in your car’s cup holder, this is for a CUP that has the Starbucks logo slapped onto itself.
Unfortunately, although many choose to deny it, it’s all Starbucks’ fault. The company announced on Nov. 5 that they would be releasing the cups the very next day along with their holiday menu. Knowing the item would be popular after hyping the release all over social media, they purposely only sent each location around one to three cups. Unfortunately, as a result, baristas were yelled at, assaulted and insulted by people due to the high demand of those cups that sold out in seconds. Starbucks failed their employees that already struggle being underpaid and overworked everyday. Why have we become like this? We are fighting over a piece of glass that isn’t even practical and reselling it, and when it becomes untrendy, it ends up with the Stanleys and Labubus.
Look, I will agree that I thought the cup was cute the first time I saw it, but as soon as I saw how people took this new release and everything they did to get it, I was shocked, but more than anything incredibly disappointed.
We live in a culture where no matter what someone says is “the best one out there,” it could be lip gloss, water bottle, even a pair of socks, we are all convinced that we need this new item. This comes from not only sponsored influencers, but the companies who are triggering this feeling of FOMO. Everything online is marketed as just being a fun collectible item, but these items end up in landfills after becoming untrendy after a week once something new is NEEDED. This cycle continues to repeat and our brains never feel satisfied with what we have. As we continue to do this, we are training ourselves to think that the solution to everything is shopping. We dig deeper into this hole the more we feel we are missing out on something that everyone else is enjoying.
It’s unfortunate to think that people believe they need to have a specific brand of even the simplest necessities such as toothpaste in order to fit in. 99.99% of the time, any video on your feed is there to market something even if the item is sitting in the background of a TikTok.
Before buying anything you see online I want everyone to stop and think for a second, “Do I want this?,” “Do I already have something similar?,” “Can I live without it?.” Although it may be hard to miss out on things, these trends will come and go. Don’t get me wrong, but realistically you will never be able to own everything you want to own at a certain point. At some point you will be able to recognize that everything you are watching is just an ad to squeeze money from you. If more people do this, it will help reduce society’s addiction to overconsumption and, overall, help you make better choices in the future while developing the habit of resisting. Every product eventually has to go somewhere, and usually those places are landfills. If we buy less, companies will produce less, and we can help the world become less polluted, cleaner and more sustainable. So I am begging you, break the cycle of chasing after every trend, it not only fuels overconsumption, but it’s unhealthy for your mindset and decision making habits.
