PicoBlog

Hi everyone,

Thanks for your patience last week when I had to skip the newsletter to record my audiobook. Here I am, pretending to be a pop star in the booth.

Onto the links!

This week on the internet…

The NYT goes deep on the internet famous Crumbl cookies

Crumbl cookies, the Utah cookie start-up that has exploded due to going viral on TikTok and Instagram, has gotten the New York Times feature treatment.

The article brings up a hot debate: are the cookies actually good?

It reads:

“Crumbl is the fastest-growing chain of dessert shops in the United States, and the fourth-fastest growing food chain of any sort in the country, according to a 2022 report from Datassential, a food and beverage analytics company. In the last six years, Crumbl has opened more than 750 stores from coast to coast. The company says that last year it sold, on average, nearly a million cookies a day.

It’s the kind of success that’s often traced to social media, but Crumbl is no ordinary internet sensation.

The company has manufactured its own hype and turbocharged it by announcing weekly cookie flavors on TikTok as if they were limited-edition sneaker drops, with vaguely sensual, slow-motion videos reminiscent of Burger King commercials. The company has amassed 6.7 million followers on the platform, more than Taco Bell and Starbucks combined.”

The New York Times’ explanation of Crumbl’s success was met with dismay in the food world. In a response article in Bon Appetit, Sam Stone writes “the dessert chain, famous for not-very-tasty cookies, is everything wrong with internet food hype.”

Stone argues that while they are visually appealing, Crumbl cookies are not very good.

“Texturally, it seems, they’re all wrong. People say they’re too soft and border on gloppy instead of gooey in the center and crisp on the edges. One Twitter user compared them to playdough. The cookies are also too sweet for many customers. Normally, I’d scoff at that kind of critique—it’s a dessert!—but these cookies are topped with frosting that is itself sometimes covered in another sweet topping. For instance, there’s a cotton candy cookie topped with cream cheese frosting and popping candy, as well as a caramel shortbread cookie topped with chocolate, caramel, and Twix pieces. It’s a sugar bomb that doesn’t seem to allow for any flavors besides sweetness to come through in each bite.”

I was musing this week that Crumbl cookies could be the Mormon mommy bloggers of the food world. They are beautiful and beloved on social media, but scoffed at as superficial and even treacherous among the Coastal Elite. Plus, they both come from Utah.

That may be a stretch, but it’s an interesting phenomenon. Here’s my hot take: Crumbl cookies are good! I don’t think I could finish a whole one, but I thouroughly enjoyed them. Nothing beats Levain, though.

Taza has officially ghosted us

It’s official, Taza has left the building.

More than a year after Naomi Davis aka Taza, one of the most influential early mommy bloggers, suddenly stopped posting without warning, she has deleted her accounts.

Her Instagram page is no more. Her website leads to a blank login page. All traces of the empire she built are gone. Josh, her husband, still has his IG page (@tiesandfries) up, but he also hasn’t posted in more than a year.

I always kind of thought she may come back, or at least, post a farewell to us all. It is pretty wild she just vanished without explanation. But, maybe it’s what she needed.

I will continue to hope and pray that eventually she would let me interview her. Maybe one day!

Is it bad to leave Coachella early if you’re an influencer?

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The Cut wrote up a recap of the backlash a TikToker faced when she decided to leave Coachella early because she was burned out.

They wrote:

“‘It is Coachella day three, but I have made the executive decision that I am going to go home today,’ Kensington Tillo, a 23-year-old beauty influencer, said on TikTok after declaring she would not be attending the remainder of the festival because she wanted to ‘not push myself’…

The influencer claimed that when she doesn’t listen to her body, she starts to ‘completely spiral’ and recounted an experience of being on another trip and forced to ‘rage and party,’ leading her to push her limits…

The blowback was swift. Some called her ‘wasteful’ and suggested she fulfill her work obligations despite feeling exhausted. One user commented, ‘How privileged,’ to which Tillo defended herself, asking why she should push herself beyond her limits when dealing with ‘extreme anxiety.’”

I think this backlash seems a little silly, but curious for your thoughts.

One more thing…

What do we all think about the Hill House bridal collection?

Have a great week,

Stephanie

My book on the influencer industry is coming out on June 6! Pre-order it here.

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