Join Me on the Strange Journey of an Animal Crossing Water Bottle

I get that New Horizons is close, but damn.

Alright y’all. We need to talk. See this Animal Crossing water bottle? I better not hear of any of you buying this monstrosity. “Why,” you ask? “It’s so cute,” you say. “Look at the tiny Isabelle and Tom Nook faces on it,” you exclaim.

Once you see the actual Amazon listing, you’ll understand. You’ll know that while you’re excited for Animal Crossing: New Horizons to launch on Switch on Friday, it would be absolutely preposterous for you to spend the money being asked of you on this water bottle.

It started out so simple. The Twitter Account called Cheap Ass Gamer posted a listing for the $19.99 water bottle. All seemed normal. That’s a reasonable price for something officially licensed, right?

About 40 minutes later, the price went up from $19.99 to $26.97. Not too much, but still more money than you would have spent pre-ordering it just under an hour ago.

But by eight hours later, things had gotten weird. People must’ve gotten in on the pre-orders and were now selling it for a higher price. Somehow, the asking price had gotten significantly higher at $102.44. Scalpers are commonplace on limited collector’s items, so while this was high, if people were desperate enough to hold their beverages in a bottle adorned with Isabelle’s face, some might be willing to pay that price.

But all of this is fairly standard for anyone who likes to buy and then sell limited editions of games, collectible items, or just anything with a semblance of rarity. However, looking at the listing now, we see a dire, worst-case scenario has come to pass.

As of this writing, the Amazon listing for this Animal Crossing: New Horizons water bottle is at a whopping $14,551.34 and rising.

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Friends, when it comes fandom and buying dumb things, none of us are truly free of sin. Do I have hundreds of dollars worth of figures, collector’s editions, and other nonsense on a shelf that would devastate me in the event they were lost in a house fire? Yeah, but this isn’t about me. This is about all you Animal Crossing fanatics out here waiting those few extra days for your fix to come to Switch.

I see all of you. Tweeting at Nintendo for them to release New Horizons early because times are tough right now and we could all use some levity on that front. But if you look at this expensive-ass water container that happens to have Tom Nook’s face on it and be like, “you know what, in the face of a pandemic, this is where my money should go,” perhaps you should take a moment to reconsider your priorities. How about instead of spending this money, you buy a water bottle without the design, and draw Tom Nook on it with a Sharpie?

All I’m saying is if I see any of you with this bottle it’s on sight.

About the Author

Kenneth Shepard

Kenneth is a Staff Writer at Fanbyte. He still periodically cries about the Mass Effect trilogy years after it concluded.