by Andrew Mbow
Pop, soft drinks, soda, Coke, fizzy drinks–all of these describe one family of drinks: sweet, carbonated beverages. One of these drinks stands above the rest, a drink so iconic that everybody can identify it just by its name: Root Beer. Recently, root beer has taken thirsty drinkers who are looking for a sweet treat by storm thanks to memes circulating on Tiktok by teens. So, what exactly is this “Mug-mania” that is being scooped up from shelevs everywhere its available?
Mug Root Beer is an American drink that was founded in 1940 in San Francisco, California. Mug was not its first name; it initially sold under the name “Belfast Root Beer”. The soda sold extremely well throughout the 20th century. In the 1950’s, it sold under the name “Belfast Old Fashion Mug Root Beer”, before it was shortened to just Mug Root Beer. In 1986, Pepsi bought Mug, and it was placed under the Pepsi umbrella.
Mug recently picked up a lot of traction on the mobile social media platform TikTok. At the beginning of 2022, many teens and others posted videos of people consuming Mug root beer, as well as making jokes about being “mug-blooded”, because of the amount of Mug they supposedly drank. I have experienced this phenomenon personally, as a couple of my friends have voiced their strong love of root Mug to me.
Benjamin Singer, a sophomore at North Springs, said that he loves root beer, “Because of the wonderful flavor and sweetness of the sarsaparilla and sassafras.” He also asserts that root beer is the best out of every carbonated beverage. John Wilson Murray, another sophomore at North Springs, orders a cup of root beer (Mug specifically) every time it is offered at a restaurant.
Typical of TikTok memes, the silliness is part of the fun; teens find it uplifting. Like most memes, Mug root beer’s brief hyper-popularity bubbled up and became a short-lived phenomenon. It’s popularity only lasted from January to March of 2022 and then fizzld out, but its impact was certainly felt like a smooth sarsparilla aftertaste. Not only do the Mug memes represent the fun of internet culture changing from the typical picture-based forms of memes to short video clips, but it is fascinating to watch how the internet can influence the popularity of a good product and take the nation, even if that populaity soon froths over.
