AriZona Iced Tea

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About

AriZona Iced Tea is a beverage company based in Woodybury, New York. It's iconic pastel-colored cans and art style have made it a popular icon in the vaporwave community, particularly with noted "sad boy" rapper Yung Lean.

History

AriZona Iced Tea has its roots in 1970s Brooklyn, where creators John Ferolito and Don Vultaggio opened a successful beer distribution company.^[1] They saw Snapple's success in the early 90s and decided to move into selling canned teas, and sold their first AriZona-branded drink in 1992. They have remained popular due to its pledge to never sell their 32 fl. oz cans for more than 99 cents.

Online Presence

In 2013, Arizona Iced Tea became coopted into the Vaporwave Aesthetic following Yung Lean's video for "Hurt," in which the rapper held bottles of AriZona (shown below). The pastel colors and Japanese imagery of the cherry blossom Green Tea crossed with several other examples of Vaporwave imagery.^[2]

As Yung Lean gained more popularity, AriZona Iced Tea's association with Vaporwave and Aesthetic culture began to grow in the quasi-ironic artworks. In 2014, a thread on hip-hop forum KanyeToThe.com^[3] devoted to Yung Lean fans featured 3 teenage white boys miming crying while holding Arizona Iced Tea.

Over the following two years, AriZona Iced Tea remained a popular icon in Aesthetic culture. On September 30th, 2016, The Daily Dot^[2] published a piece that investigated how AriZona Iced Tea became a meme in Vaporwave culture. AV Club followed the next day with a piece on its "Great Job, Internet!" blog. While its conclusions on the meme origins of AriZona were indefinite, its look at AriZona's Twitter^[5] account indicated the company is aware of its popularity in the Vaporwave subcommunity.