The popular drink bottle dividing playgrounds

Australian drink bottle brand Frank Green has been riding the wave as one of the it-girls of social media for the past two years and now the trend has filtered into regional primary schools.

Parent Louise Rossi from Ballarat in Victoria said she saw many children at school pick-up time walking around with the metal drink bottles in the side pockets of their bags.

"It's just nuts. There's thousands and thousands of dollars worth of Frank Green just walking around."

At the $60 regular retail price for a one-litre bottle, it's a high price tag, especially one that might be jostled around the playground or misplaced at after-school activities. Ms Rossi was tossing up about whether to buy the drink bottles for her children.

Her oldest daughter Sofia was gifted hers at Easter from her grandparents.

"My mum said you know she can't miss out because all of her friends were getting one," Ms Rossi said.

Because of the price tag and social value within her children's friend groups, Ms Rossi said they were conscious of how they were looking after their bottles.

"As much as they are expensive, the kids know they have to take care of it ... with that money value they take a bit of pride in it."

Before aesthetic drink bottles, hard plastic bottles were more common.

Often they could be easily branded with gym logos or sporting teams. Other more popular or sturdy brands were designed for an outdoor audience.

Brands like Swell started to market skinny metal drink bottles in 2010. They intended to offer a trendy alternative to single-use plastic while also being something you could proudly display on your desk. Keeping your water cool during the day was also an alluring feature.

In 2019 Hydro Flasks were the drink bottle of the year, made popular by the trending VSCO girl aesthetic, a trend which rose in popularity leading into 2020.

VSCO girls wore scrunchies on their wrists and owned a Fjallraven's Kanken backpack and a Hydro Flask drink bottle with a price tag upwards of $150 and $80, respectively.

Frank Green bottles were the it-girls of the 2022/23 Australian summer and now Stanley Cups, even bigger drink bottles with a tapered end and giant handle, are making their way to the top of the list. Originally the intention of these kinds of drink bottles was to move away from single-use plastic.

The environmentally friendly alternative is thrown out the window if you need a new drink bottle every year to keep up with the trend.

If you're part of certain parts of the internet, this trend is almost inescapable.

From people opening mystery boxes to bottles featuring in vlogs, it would be easy to get sucked into the hype, even without classroom politics pressure.

Ms Rossi has been able to keep her young ones away from most of the implicit social media marketing surrounding brands like Frank Green, but it is filtering in from somewhere.

Is Frank Green the latest in a long list of capitalism trends thinly veiled by aspirational social media?

Or another case of trendy school items becoming popular but sticking around - like Smiggle or Typo, or the newest Nikes?