Recently at a market in Sydney I came across a stand for Joco. I had never heard of the company before but I couldn’t help but roll my eyes when I saw what they were selling.

Quite simply, they seem to have invented the flask. Yes, the flask…

We seem to live in an age of needless, overblown reinvention by hipsters. Like the time when Uber essentially claimed to have invented the bus, we’re witnessing the bizarre promotion of pretentious products, all of which are sold under the exaggerated (and often inappropriately used) labels of ‘bespoke’, ‘artisan’ and ‘organic’.

How such products survive without any kind of unique value proposition is beyond me, particularly when they’re sold at ludicrous prices. Frankly, I believe that it all comes down to rampant consumerism and personal obsession with status.