Yankee Candle Index
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About
The Yankee Candle Index is the colloquial name of a phenomenon that suggests that influxes of negative reviews for Yankee Candles and other scented candles, in which people complain the candles don't smell as strongly as they expect them to, correlate to oncoming waves of COVID-19, as one of the notable symptoms of COVID-19 is loss of smell.
Origin
On November 24th, 2020, Twitter user @TerriDrawsStuff[1] noticed, "There are angry ladies all over Yankee Candle’s site reporting that none of the candles they just got had any smell at all. I wonder if they’re feeling a little hot and nothing has much taste for the last couple days too." The tweet implies that the angry reviewers have contracted COVID-19, which likely caused the loss of their sense of smell. The tweet gained over 6,200 retweets and 57,000 likes in two years (shown below).
Spread
Three days after @TerriDrawsStuff's tweet, Twitter user @kate_ptrv[2] posted a graph analyzing reviews of Amazon's candle selection. She discovered that after the onset of the pandemic, negative reviews of scented candles that mentioned a lack of smell increased dramatically, while non-scented candles maintained a steady level of positive reviews (shown below).
On December 21st, 2021, @drewtoothpaste noticed that negative reviews for scented candles began appearing on Amazon again,[3] suggesting a COVID-19 wave was about to hit the United States. The tweet gained over 5,000 retweets and 40,000 likes in one year (shown below).
The tweet inspired Northeastern political science professor Nicholas Beauchamp to do a proper study on the correlation between negative scented candle reviews and COVID-19 waves in June of 2022. He concluded that negative reviews tend to appear before COVID-19 waves and could be useful in the sense it may give people a "slight heads up" ahead of a wave.[4]
On October 9th, 2022, Twitter user @DataDrivenMD[5] found that negative reviews for scented candles were trending again, suggesting a COVID-19 spike could be imminent. The tweet gained over 23,000 retweets and 146,000 likes in four days (shown below).
The tweet led to renewed interest in the "Yankee Candle Index" phenomenon, and it was covered by outlets including The Guardian,[6] Inquirer[7] and Newsweek[8] over the following days.
Search Interest
External References
[1] Twitter – @TerriDrawsStuff
[2] Twitter – @kate_ptrv
[3] Twitter – @drewtoothpaste
[4] Northeastern – ‘THERE IS NO SCENT!’ WHAT YANKEE CANDLE REVIEWS CAN TELL US ABOUT COVID-19 TRENDS
[5] Twitter – datadrivenmd
[6] The Guardian – Could negative reviews of smelly candles hint at a Covid surge?
[7] Inquirer – There’s a new wave of bad Yankee Candle reviews on Amazon. Does that tell us anything about COVID trends?
[8] Newsweek – Doctor Suggests Bad Yankee Candle Reviews Could Mean COVID is Coming Back
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