I searched the NYT for "cupcakes" in the first and second six months of each year, from 1981 through the first half of 2008, and divided the number of resulting articles by the number of articles on any topic whatsoever for the entire year, to control for overall output. (For 2008, I used the number for thus far and extrapolated to the end of the year). I went with the NYT because it's easy to search, and also because the newspaper is not specifically for gourmands -- if some trend shows up in coverage even for the non-foodie plebes, it must be real.
Here is a graph of the cupcake craze:
An exponential increase model accounts for 63% of the time-to-time variation; it's not as much as usual since there's somewhat of a cycle aside from pure increase. Usually the fall-winter time has more articles on cupcakes, probably reflecting the presence of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas then.
In any case, there's a steady, small amount of coverage up until 1998, when the upward trend begins. The peak lasts from fall-winter 2006 to fall-winter 2007. The spring-summer 2008 data-point is the lowest since fall-winter 2005, so -- at least for right now -- it may not be wise to start up that cupcake bar you've always been dreaming of owning. It's just slightly more prudent to invest in something whose shelf-life isn't obviously going to be two years or less.
Lastly, this graph only reflects how obsessed the cultural elite is with cupcakes -- sales data may or may not agree with this -- but at least among the foodies, this silly fad has passed out of fashion.
Wasn't Sex and the City largely responsible for the cupcake craze?
ReplyDeleteI am here to spread the knowledge, Agnostic.
ReplyDeleteWasn't Sex and the City largely responsible for the cupcake craze?
ReplyDeleteAs a general rule, no famous person or thing ever starts or accelerates a trend -- usually, it was already gaining popularity, and the famous person (being savvy) picked up on it and decided to jump on the bandwagon.
It looks like quite a few people do blame SATC for the cupcake craze, but the data don't support this. The episode they're referring to was broadcast in July 2000.
If you look at the graph above 2000, there's a local peak -- that's Jan-June 2000. So it was already increasing and reached something of a peak before the episode aired.
The point for July-Dec 2000 is the next, which is down from before. And the next time, Jan-June 2001, is even farther down. It doesn't jump up again until July-Dec 2001 -- and no one can think it took an entire year for SATC to have its effect. It should've showed up in July-Dec 2000 or Jan-June 2001.
I have no doubt that the episode brought lots of tourists to that particular bakery, but the cupcake craze is independent of SATC.
I am here to spread the knowledge, Agnostic.
ReplyDeleteAnd you like to come here to spread it for me.
We make a good team, Ms. Good Cop.
As a general rule, no famous person or thing ever starts or accelerates a trend -- usually, it was already gaining popularity, and the famous person (being savvy) picked up on it and decided to jump on the bandwagon.
ReplyDeletePerhaps the best example of a mistaken single-event cause is the belief that men largely stopped wearing hats after John F. Kennedy went bareheaded during his inauguration in January 1961. Sales of men's hats actually had been on an increasingly steep decline for more than 30 years prior to this event. Not to mention the fact that Kennedy wore the traditional top hat during much of the ceremony.
Until a couple months ago, when my workplace moved farther south in Manhattan, I would occasionally walk to Penn Station after work. My usual route took me near Magnolia Bakery, which had been featured in the SATC episode. There often would be a long line of people, mostly young women, waiting on the sidewalk to enter the tiny bakery. Sometimes there would be tour buses stopped outside. Keep in mind, this was still going on eight years after the episode first aired.
cupcake= sugary bread, topped by a glaze made of sugary-industrial-goo, otfen colored blue or even green
ReplyDeletewhen you think about it...........they are kinda disgusting little creations aren't they?
That Saturday Night Live video, "Lazy Sunday" that went viral in 2005 prominently featured Magnolia Bakery and certainly took the trend nationwide. Also, unless you're controlling for noise from the sports page, a lot of the increase is also due to increasing discussion of schedule strength in the BCS-era college football context. Lame, small-school opponents are nearly universally referred to as "cupcakes."
ReplyDelete