The Hydro Flask has become a staple accessory for many Auburn students. As it turns out, the reusable water bottle has capabilities beyond aiding in hydration and being obnoxiously loud when dropped on the ground.
Much like the Macbook, the Hydro Flask is a convenient place for its owner to place stickers that allude to his or her personal beliefs, experiences or hobbies, and with the information these stickers give, one may — or may not — be able to learn a little bit about its owner.
Joseph Mungenast, a sophomore studying finance, is from Alabama. But the stickers on his Hydro Flask hint at adventures far beyond the Yellowhammer state: a “Beautiful Glacier National Park” sticker meant to resemble an entrance sign is stuck near the bottom of the dark blue canteen. A sticker from Yosemite National Park is just above it.
“If you just looked at my Hydro Flask, you’d just think I love being outside,” Mungenast said. “I love hiking and stuff like that.”
There’s also a sticker from Camp Alpine, a camp in Mentone, Alabama — which also makes an appearance on the water bottle where Mungenast worked last summer. The bottle is dinged, and some of its blue paint has come off near the top, having aged outdoors with its owner over the past few years.
Looking at Jason Schumacher’s Hydro Flask is a bit like looking at a collection of someone’s scribbled, shorthand notes. If it was all you had to try and learn about someone, you could, if you “knew what half of them meant,” as Schumacher said,
There’s a Rocket City Trash Pandas logo — a panda in a launching garbage-can rocket — that Schumacher picked up in Huntsville, home of the Trash Pandas, a minor league baseball team.
“I just thought it was hilarious,” Schumacher said.
There’s also a sticker of a gaming team that he follows, a cryptic collection of letters to anyone who doesn’t follow esports. But Schumacher, a senior studying chemistry, also has an Auburn University logo proudly pasted to his water bottle as well as a sticker for the University’s swimming and diving team, which he was a part of.
Other students seem to be more intentional with their sticker placement.
Lucy Jane is a junior in public relations. Her water bottle has three stickers on it. The colorful Bonnaroo sticker she bought at the festival this summer shows her love for music, she said, and the sticker from when she white-water rafted in the Ocoee River in Tennessee shows her fondness for nature.
The third sticker, unlike the others, doesn’t call to mind a past experience. It’s just a drawing of a smiling kitten in a cardboard box, which Jane bought on Redbubble, an online marketplace for user-submitted artwork, which she said shows her love for animals.
On Jillian Clark’s Hydro Flask there is a sticker with the word “HOT” in bold text placed on the front, a memento from her trip to the Tabasco Museum in Avery Island, Louisiana, and several stickers of breweries she’s visited. Clark, a senior in biochemistry, said she’s a fan of craft beer and picked up the stickers at Auburn’s Oktoberfest celebration last month. She doesn’t necessarily try to express her full personality on her water bottle, though.
“I mean, obviously I like beer, but there’s more to me than that,” Clark said.
Mary Bentley Barfield is a sophomore in graphic design and the owner of a Hydro Flask covered in memes and pop culture references. They’re all kind of random, she said.
“I’m not really sure why I put any of them on there, and I don’t really know who I am yet,” Barfield said. “So it kind of makes sense.”
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Evan Mealins, senior in philosophy and economics, is the editor-in-chief of The Auburn Plainsman.
