Behind the Cup Cult
Amid the nation’s longest government shutdown, the looming release of the Epstein emails, and a contentious New York Mayoral election, the hill many Americans chose to die on was securing a tiny glass bear cup. Released by Starbucks in limited quantities as part of their newest Holiday Collection, the $30 cup sold out nationwide within hours and turned otherwise reasonable adults into rabid animals, willing to do whatever it takes to get within striking distance of that cup. Naturally, the resale market exploded, with eBay prices rivaling those of the newest iPhone 17. And thus once again, in the way only American consumer culture can manage, utter chaos erupted over an object that can’t hold hot drinks or fit into a car’s cup holder.
And thus once again, in the way only American consumer culture can manage, utter chaos ensued over an object that cannot even hold hot drinks or fit into a car’s cup holder
From what I’ve seen online, three types of people have been swept up by this craze.
First, are the competitors who have camped outside stores since 2 a.m., wrapped up in blankets and jackets. The instant the doors open, they sprint inside—elbowing, pushing, crying, and arguing (this is likely their third state and tenth store they’ve staked out, and at this point they’re essentially “bear cup quest” professionals). When they finally emerge triumphant, they’re quick to post videos cradling the cup with the kind of pride usually only reserved for a first-born child. Second, are those who take immense pride in their over-spending. Influencers confess joyfully that they successfully paid $1000 to buy the cup off another customer. Others insist they secured a “steal” at $200 on eBay, taking pride in spending a month’s worth of groceries on a merchandise cup. And third, are certain TikTokers, who speak with smug superiority, asserting that they would never fall for such a frenzy, and instead make their own cup. Yet their process, consisting of buying honey in a bear-shaped plastic bottle, washing out the honey, attaching to it a beanie and Starbucks logo from Amazon, and then asking an overworked barista to pour a cold brew into it, itself is evidence of their participation in the trend. Regardless of their approach, each group illustrates our astonishing ability to assign emotional, social, and even moral significance to objects that, in just a week, matter no more than instructions on a shampoo bottle.
In these products, we don't just invest unreasonably large sums of money; we pour in our time, energy, hopes, and dreams. Yet we continue to ignore this pattern. Social media critiques of such trends tend to focus on the product itself. Creators ask, “why does anyone even think these cups are cute” and assert that at this point it would be “embarrassing” to be seen drinking out of one. But such critiques only push us further and further into this consumerist loop (“the Stanley is impractical, buy the Owala instead!”). What we often seem to ignore is the common pattern these trends all follow. The bear cup craze doesn’t signify a collective loss of personal aesthetics or assessment of practicality, but rather reflects how quickly we assign meaning and status to something fundamentally pointless.
Even decades earlier, in the 1980s, squishy dolls wielding adoption papers—the Cabbage Patch Kids—inspired a near national meltdown. Stores overflowed as parents wrestled dolls out of each other's hands like D1 athletes. At one point, radio jockeys joked that a plane would airdrop Cabbage Patch Kids over a stadium, and dozens of fully grown adults arrived with catcher’s mitts, ready for a literal toy drop. People were willing to sacrifice their time, money, and even themselves for a doll no larger than their forearm.
It’s often easy to distance yourself from this tendency—brushing it off as just an “American thing”, “only during a certain era,” or “consumerism gone off the rails”— but no one is really immune. In fifth grade I felt absolutely compelled to own slime (stretchy, squeezable glue based goo customised with colors, scents, and decorative mix-ins). With Borax (the ingredient that “activates” glue, turning it into slime) being banned in Singapore, I turned to buying “special” glues that were advertised to not need activation, stretchy clay that allegedly could turn into slime if mixed with water, and store bought slimes that were excessively watery due to preservatives. My freezer was packed with bowls of soaps and shaving cream, ten types of glues were exhausted, and clay was drenched with water. The slime was never successful, yet I had spent hours, dollars, resources, and my sanity devoted in my quest to own it.
Today, the bear cup craze has been extensively analyzed through every possible lens: herd mentality, coping mechanism, wealth display, scarcity marketing, and even “collective insanity". But set against the extensive history of trends just like this, it’s hard to see this one as anything but a predictable chapter in our concerning habit of attaching identity and meaning to material possessions.
And if we keep ignoring our obsessive tendency as a society to place unwarranted importance on arbitrary material objects, these crazes will remain as predictable as they are ridiculous
And if we keep ignoring our obsessive tendency to place unwarranted importance on arbitrary objects, these crazes will remain as predictable as they are ridiculous. After all, it only took a logo and limited release for half the country to behave as though a tiny bear was more valuable than the Crown Jewels.