If you’re not quite sure why everything is suddenly Dubai chocolate or what exactly a Labubu is, you’re not alone. Trends have such a tenuous connection to our culture at large that posters online have started to identify the phenomenon with word salad: “labubu matcha dubai chocolate crumbl cookie benson boone …” You get the gist.

Amanda Mull, who’s writes about consumerism and the internet for Bloomberg, says this miasma of trends is all a part of our algorithm-mediated world.

When Mull looks back at fads of the past, like when everyone was collecting Beanie Babies back in the nineties, she can follow a clear trail of sociological phenomena and human actors that paved the way from cult status to ubiquity.

But tastemakers don’t control trends anymore; the algorithm does. What all of the

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