Fifty years ago, a simple little cup changed the world forever. Well, little might be the wrong word. In 1976, 7-Eleven introduced the Big Gulp, a 32-ounce fountain drink that would help change the way we looked at soft drinks. The idea came after a Coca-Cola representative noticed customers in Southern California repeatedly refilling smaller fountain cups. 7-Eleven decided to try something different and sent about 500 of the new 32-ounce cups to a busy Southern California store. They sold out within a week, and just like that, bigger became better.
The Big Gulp wasn’t even the familiar cup we know today. The original design was a strange, square-topped container that looked more like a milk carton. Eventually, 7-Eleven moved to the round cup we recognize today, and the Big Gulp became a fixture of convenience-store culture. But 32 ounces was only the beginning. The Super Big Gulp pushed the size to 44 ounces, the Double Gulp took it to 64 ounces, and eventually came the Team Gulp, a full gallon of beverage. Somewhere along the way, we stopped asking how much we actually needed and started asking how much we could get. You know what they say: Go big or go home.
The rest of the food industry was paying attention, and suddenly bigger portions were becoming part of the culture. McDonald’s introduced its Super Size option in 1987, offering even larger fries and drinks. Then something interesting happened: fast food and pop culture collided. For Who Framed Roger Rabbit? in 1988, McDonald’s used a Super Size promotion aimed at teenagers and young adults. A few years later came Jurassic Park, and McDonald’s went full dinosaur with its “Dino-Sized” fries and drinks. Apparently, if a T. rex could eat it, we figured we could too.
And it wasn’t just McDonald’s. Wendy’s had its big options, Burger King had King Size meals, movie theatres were serving popcorn and drinks that seemed large enough to require their own zip code, and convenience stores were turning fountain drinks into collectible experiences. Even 7-Eleven had been using pop culture to sell drinks for years, with collectible Slurpee cups featuring characters from Marvel and other popular franchises. Food wasn’t simply food anymore. It was entertainment, advertising, nostalgia and a souvenir all rolled into one.
Then came the backlash. In 2004, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock released Super Size Me, putting fast food, portion sizes and eating habits under a very public microscope. Around the same time, McDonald’s began phasing out Super Size fries and drinks, although the company said the documentary was not the reason and pointed instead to menu simplification and changing consumer preferences. Still, the timing made for one heck of a cultural moment.
Spurlock captured the mentality behind the whole era with a line that still feels pretty darn relevant: “Everything’s bigger in America. We’ve got the biggest cars, the biggest houses, the biggest companies, the biggest food, and finally: the biggest people.”
And maybe that’s what we really lost along the way. Somewhere between the Big Gulp, the Super Size fries and the Dino-Sized drink, bigger stopped being just an option and became a symbol of value. More fries meant a better deal. More soda meant you were getting your money’s worth. A large didn’t feel large anymore because there was always something larger waiting behind it. We weren’t just buying food. We were buying the feeling that we were getting more for our money.
That’s where pop culture made the whole thing even more powerful. We grew up seeing our favourite movies, cartoon characters and celebrities attached to food. You could have your Jurassic Park cup, your collectible toy, your movie-themed meal and enough soda to keep you awake through the entire trilogy. The food companies weren’t just selling lunch anymore. They were selling a piece of whatever happened to be exciting us that week.
The funny thing is that the pendulum eventually swung in the opposite direction. Instead of giving us a 64-ounce bucket, companies began finding another trick. Things got a little smaller. The burger got thinner. The package contained fewer ounces. The chocolate bar lost a couple of squares. The cup somehow seemed to have less room in it than it used to, and sometimes the price didn’t get any smaller at all.
It’s shrinkflation, and it has created its own strange version of the same problem. For years, we were trained to expect more, and now we’re being asked to accept less. The difference is that nobody puts a big flashing sign on the package saying, “Congratulations! We’ve made it smaller!”
Today’s consumer isn’t wondering how they’re going to finish that gigantic meal. We’re looking at our supposedly “large” meal, wondering why it feels suspiciously like yesterday’s medium. We went from “Super Size me” to “Where did the rest of my fries go?”
Fifty years after the Big Gulp helped convince us that bigger was better, we’ve somehow come full circle. Maybe the real story isn’t about the size of the cup at all. Maybe it’s about how easily we can get used to almost anything when somebody convinces us it’s a better deal.
And as for that little cup that started it all? Well, I guess it wasn’t so little after all.
With age, there’s always a little bit of shrinkage.
More from Sandbox World
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From Grubbits
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