Nah, I think “Hey I think I see a way to make a bunch of money” happened. “Stanley cups have suddenly become very popular and thus scarce, so I’ll go get a bunch of them and sell them for more than their retail price. oh, their retail price is actually quite high. I know, I’ll just shoplift them! Profit margins increase!”

The psychology I find fascinating is the trend itself. A brand of quality insulated metal water cups that has apparently existed this whole time has suddenly become a popular fashion item among the instagramettes. We’ve apparently reached the shoplifting stage of the craze. I wonder how many fistfights there will be over $45 water bottles.

From the point of view of a male 30-something hermit, the journey has gone like this so far: I use Firefox, and if you don’t set a homepage it has this start screen with buttons for sites you frequent as well as a bunch of news articles served by whatever the hell Pocket is. One of them had an image of a bright pink handled drinking cup with a headline to the effect of “Confessions of a cup girl.” I did not read this article. A short time later, someone posts to Lemmy the picture of Homer Simpson in the lesbian bar, all the women have those same pink cups, he’s got the hockey trophy. Now here we are, a 23-year old woman has been arrested for stealing a shopping cart full of them. It’s absolutely fucking hilarious.