Pattern of bad reviews for candles that 'don't smell' match up with Covid waves
You wouldn’t have thought it, but a bad candle reviews seem to tell a story about Covid surges.
One of the common coronavirus symptoms is a loss of smell, which you’d need to make the most of a scented candle.
Yankee Candles have received bad reviews of their products on Amazon in waves – much like the pandemic.
People have compared the timelines of these spikes in bad reviews with Covid surges and found they actually match up.
The reviews often complain of the scented candles lacking in scent – suggesting the costumers may actually have been suffering from Covid, rather than a bad candle batch.
While there are plenty of positive reviews, negative reviews seem to have flocked together at concentrated points of time.
One reviewer said: ‘I’ve bought this candle before, and the fragrance would fill the room. This one barely has a scent. Boo.’
Here’s a plot of the “no smell” complaints for the top three Yankee Candles on Amazon. pic.twitter.com/EFUsGil5k4
Another wrote: ‘No scent whatsoever unless you face-plant into the glass vessel. Burned it for eight hours and, ta-da, NO fragrance.’
Both of these were posted in late December, as the Omicron variant raged through populations.
Nick Beauchamp, an assistant professor of political science at Northeastern University, made a chart of the complaints against a time frame, which suggests the spikes have come as coronavirus cases increased.
Though he said not to ‘take this too seriously’ as negative reviews for Yankee Candles tend to increase in the winter months anyway, it’s an interesting observation that shows just how much Covid symptoms are leaking into everyday life.
Kate Petrova, a researcher at Bryn Mawr College, found in the previous winter that reviews for Amazon’s top scented candles had dropped – perhaps for a similar reason.
The lesson? Don’t treat yourself to a scented candle while you have Covid – and get a PCR test if you really can’t smell it.
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