Stanley fans call out woman for throwing 4 cups in the trash: 'Scary level of consumerism'

A social media influencer upset Stanley cup lovers this week when she told her followers to throw them away and replace them with a new alternative.

TikTok user @ToriHalford opens her video by tossing four Stanley cups, which sell for almost $50 each on Amazon, into a garbage bag.

"This is your sign to get rid of all your Stanleys," she says.

Nothing is visibly wrong with the bottles, but she calls each one "trash" as she tosses them into the bag.

She then introduces four brightly colored HydroJugs and shares how she believes the tumblers are better than Stanley cups.

"I will not be using another tumbler and here's why," says Halford.

Unlike the Stanley Cup, Halford says she likes that the HydroJug cups don't spill and it don't clank when it's placed onto a table.

While some commenters agreed with her arguments, others were shocked to see the influencer "throw away" perfectly good Stanley cups that others might love to have.

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Stanley obsession fueled by social media

"This is a scary level of consumerism," commented one TikTok user on the video. "Did you really throw them away?"

"The idea of throwing away a reusable water bottle to replace it with another, trendier reusable water bottle is so dire," commented another user.

The Stanley cup craze has been turbocharged by social media, USA TODAY previously reported, as consumers seek a sense of belonging within the community of collectors.

Some people waited hours to get their hands on the limited edition Stanley x Starbucks quencher.

This labeling of items as "exclusive" or controlling the number of items that will be available to purchase goes right to a consumer’s psyche, says Josh Clarkson, a consumer psychologist who specializes in the areas of persuasion, social influence, and self-control.  

Influencer later says she donated the Stanleys

Halford posted a video a day after the original TikTok was shared clarifying she did not actually throw the Stanley tumblers away and, instead, donated them to a women's shelter.

Her original video had over 6 million views and the update had a little over 170,000 views when this article was written.

Still commenters were pleased that they didn't end up in the garbage.

"Truly amazing that you did this! I’m sure they loved it all!!" one TikToker replied.

Do reusable water bottles really help the environment?

Many people opt to get reusable water bottles because it limits the amount of plastic they consume, reports Wired.

In fact, the main selling point of the Hydro Flask, another reusable water bottle brand, is its promise that its products will replace single-use plastics.

However, many reusable water bottles use virgin material. According to an article from the New York Times' archives, producing a stainless steel water bottle that is 300 grams "requires seven times as much fossil fuel, releases 14 times more greenhouse gases, demands the extraction of hundreds of times more metal resources and causes hundreds of times more toxic risk to people and ecosystems than making a 32-gram plastic bottle."

"The entire point of having a reusable water bottle is to replace the need for plastic ones," says TikToker @LuckyFrogShop in her video addressing the Stanley trend earlier this month.

She says that having 30 to 50 Stanley cups of different colors to match each outfit "defeats the point" of having a more sustainable option.

"This is why I always say that the number one thing you can do to be sustainable is to consume less," she says.

But influencer and proud owner of 11 Stanley cups, Bella Boye, tells USA Today that she doesn't feel silly for having so many.

"I’m a dancer, so a water bottle is always with me. I use them all the time,” she says.

The "big dumb cup"

The Stanley cup's popularity and the mania that ensued with its limited edition Target release earned it a satirical skit on "Saturday Night Live" this weekend.

Actor Dakota Johnson and "SNL" cast members Chloe Fineman and Heidi Gardner play three women who just love their cups in the skit, called "Big dumb cup."

The skit makes fun of the "physically or at least spiritually" blonde people that go out of their way to seek the latest fad.

"It's more than just a cup. It's a big cup," one of them says as the audience laughs. And another one: "Is there a void in your life? Fill it with cup."

Not the first reusable canteen

Despite the fame and recent "SNL" nod, this "big dumb cup" is far from being the first popular, internet-famous bottle.

Hydro Flask's fame came before it. The VSCO girl, pronounced "Visco," sparked the hydro flasks trend from the late 2010s and early 2020s. They were the VSCO girls' water bottle of choice, according to Seventeen.

The VSCO trend became so popular, TikToker @Koobydoobydoobydoo's satire video went viral and garnered over 34.7 million views.

Contributing: Betty Lin-Fisher and Bailey Schulz