It’s November 6th, 2025, and people are scrambling to get to Starbucks at the crack of dawn, ready for the fight ahead to secure the new “Starbucks Bear Cup”. You open TikTok to see millions of posts about this new collectible cup released for the holidays. This glass cup, shaped like a teddy bear, wearing a green knitted beanie with the word “Starbucks” plastered on the front, and a swirled green and white plastic straw sticking out of the top, went extremely viral across many social media apps. Many people wonder why and how they went so viral; it’s all due to the smart marketing team and the major consumerism epidemic.
A month before the release, Starbucks announced the release of a never-before-seen cup that is a part of the 2025 holiday season merchandise. Starbucks deliberately only released a scarce amount of these cups to make them more valuable, rare, and give people the feeling of missing out on getting this new trendy cup. On the morning of the release date, people were already lining up, some even camped out overnight, to get this cup. There were reports of fights breaking out over the cups and people verbally attacking Starbucks employees for not having the cups. BHS student Hailey McAfee said, “I witnessed a lady screaming at a barista about the bear cup.”
The release of this cup created chaos; people were attacking Starbucks for not producing enough cups. Starbucks stores reported receiving small quantities of the cups; some only received one or two cups in total. NCHS student and Starbucks employee Natalie Zaki said, “We received 2 cups on the initial day of the launch, and then one more a day or two later.” Natalie said, “We got several calls asking about them…” as well. Starbucks knew the demand for these cups and still underproduced the product regardless. The cup was being sold for $30, but is now being resold on sites like eBay for hundreds, even thousands of dollars. Many people across the internet have split opinions on them; some absolutely adore the cups and are still searching for them, and some think it’s absolutely pointless and a waste of money. As controversial as they are, nobody can deny the significant impact they had on social media and how they fueled consumerism.
