The Once Popular La Croix Beverage is Suddenly Facing Online Backlash

The popularity of La Croix, one of America's beloved beverages offering a multitude of tongue-twisting flavor options since 1981, has finally fizzled. Or gone completely flat.

Mashable noticed that the can of the sparkling water, smeared with an egregious aesthetic better left in the 90s, has become targeted by a slew of anti-La Croix jokes and memes.

The Internet has taken a dig at the brand, mocking its weak flavors that barely register on the taste buds.

This tweet sparked a surge of La-Croix haters and garnered over 157 thousand likes.

The Internet is a strange place. The brand produced by National Beverage Corp. originated from a brewing company in La Crosse, Wisconsin, and appealed to consumers looking for an import alternate. After the New York Times endorsed La Croix, it resonated with social media users looking for a new meme sensation.

Enter the Pamplemousse La Croix Memes group on Facebook, where the page lampooned the name of the flavor which translates to grapefruit, in French.

Unfortunately, the once highly-praised drink is suddenly finding itself in the midst of a soda pop cultural shift, or a backwash of sorts.

Is La Croix the sparkling water equivalent of boxed wine?

So what could be the catalyst for all the hating on the sparkling water? Maybe it's because there's a new kid in town.

With a successful brand cornering the market on domestic sparkling water, Pepsi wanted in. The growing competition says a lot about La Croix.

Bubly is Pepsi's version of the beverage containing no artificial sweeteners and has zero calories. They come in eight flavors, including, lime, grapefruit, strawberry, lemon, orange, apple, mango, and cherry.

They've even appealed to millennials with their colorful monochromatic labels and period-relevant catchphrases like, "Oh hi."

PepsiCo vice president Todd Kaplan said, "We created Bubly to provide consumers with a great-tasting, flavorful, unsweetened sparkling water in a fun, playful, and relevant manner."

Even the Coca Cola-owned Aquafina gunned for La Croix's sparkling water base with their own line. Though it failed to catch on after launching in 2013, consumers still welcomed the new alternative.

The bashing continues.

So how is this affecting sales for La Croix? According to USA Today, National Beverage Corp. noticed a $244.1 million spike for the quarter ending in October 2017, up from $41 million around the same time in 2016.

Turns out people are still thirsting for the stuff. But just because they slam it online, doesn't mean they won't keep a secret stash of it at home.

H/T - MotleyFool, Brit, Twitter, Paper