BY JACK WATSON

On 17 June 2022, YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul announced that their new creation Prime (no, not the Amazon service) would be available to buy in the UK. Prime is a hydration drink which is becoming one of the most popular drinks in the world. It is available in seven flavours, but they are not all available in the same store in the UK. People are having to travel far and wide to collect all the flavours. People are even fighting over Prime and ‘going mental’.

Absurd.

At first, it was only available in Asda, and within hours of the drink being stocked, it was gone. Asda, eventually, limited the customers to one of each flavour instead of being able to buy a full crate. The drink sells at £2 per bottle. Some stores need to keep it behind customer services instead of on open shelves. Despite the hype, reviews have not been all that positive; for example:

“It’s a smooth drink and tastes fresh but is absolutely nothing ground breaking in terms of flavour.”

What is the ‘craze’ about this drink?

Gatorade, also an energy drink, certainly did not have this response when it was first launched. The ingredients of the blue raspberry flavoured Prime are: filtered water; reconstituted powdered coconut water; acid (Citric Acid); mineral salt (Dipotassium phosphate); natural flavouring; sweeteners; (Sucralose, Acesulfame K); amino acids (L-Isoleucine, L-Leucine, L-Valine); vitamin E; vitamin A; vitamin B-6 and vitamin B-12. Hardly appetising, and Prime has 2 grams of sugar, and 25 calories per 500ml bottle.

Prime is supposed to be a healthy drink to have after a workout, as it contains fewer calories and sugar than other drinks; however, it also includes ingredients that are not good for you. Citric acid may increase inflammation, sucralose is an artificial sweetener shown to negatively impact insulin levels, and acesulfame potassium is another artificial sweetener found to cause adverse effects on the gut and brain. Having one bottle after a workout may not do you any harm. But people are not just drinking one, they are trying to get their hands on as many as possible and imbibing them as rapidly as they can. Yet Prime is a hydration drink, it is not designed for casual drinking during the day.

At the end of 2022, Aldi announced that on 29th December they too would be selling Prime. On the day it was going to be available in Aldi, people formed massive queues outside at ridiculously early times in the morning. As soon as the doors opened buyers raced in to buy it. There are videos of people fighting over Prime, and pictures of conveyor belts packed with it. The store ‘tried’ to help the situation by giving people in the queues a wristband indicating which flavour they wanted. If you had a wristband, you could buy Prime; once they ran out of wristbands the drink was unavailable.

On Facebook you can pay £5-10 just for the bottle, WITHOUT THE DRINK INSIDE! I have come across prices in the hundreds and thousands of pounds. Someone on TikTok makes videos selling the drink to customers at the bargain price of £75 – nice business if you can get it.

So, what is happening?

This is just a drink with seven different flavours, it has the same functions as other drinks, and it is causing a huge problem in stores. Forming a queue outside Asda or Aldi in the early hours is not dissimilar to ‘panic buying’ during those two lost years of Covid.

Let’s be honest, if the drink was not made by YouTubers KSI and Logan Paul then nobody would know what it was, and nobody would be queuing up at daft times, fighting over it, nor buying it for ridiculous prices.

The Prime craze is just another example of the combined power of social media and clever influencers creating a desire for something that nobody needs – manifesting social currency in the pursuit of pointlessness. A series of lockdowns, useless Prime (not the drink) Ministers and an endless stream of drivel from our main broadcasters – nothing but bad news in our newspapers – have ushered in an age of inanity.

Prime is today’s here-today-gone-tomorrow craze, there will no doubt be another one coming along soon.

So, if you are thinking of getting up at the crack of dawn and setting off to join the longest queue of your lifetime, think ‘is this actually worth fighting over? Is the drink nice? Is it good for me?’ But more importantly, ask yourself, are you being manipulated?

There is no obligation to be inane.

Jack Watson is a 14-year-old schoolboy