• 404@lemmy.zip
      153·
      10 months ago

      As some of the other commenters say, one of covid’s trademark symptoms is loss of smell and the comment curves coincide with the outbreaks.

    • NinjaCheetah@sh.itjust.works
      78·
      10 months ago

      I believe it’s suggesting the negative reviews are all people with COVID, with the spikes in negative reviews being spikes in COVID cases, based on the dates.

    • TootSweet@lemmy.worldEnglish
      74·
      10 months ago

      Covid causes loss of smell. Spikes in bad reviews of Yankee candles correspond with covid spikes. Not because of anything wrong with the candles. Because of something wrong with people’s schnozzes. Specifically loss of smell due to covid.

  • VolcanoWonderpants@lemmy.todayEnglish
    132·
    10 months ago

    So I’m guessing a competing company bought a bunch of bad reviews at the same time. But how did the second person put it in a graph? Is he really that passionate about protecting Yankee Candle from slander, or are those review reliability things more advanced than I thought…?

      • VolcanoWonderpants@lemmy.todayEnglish
        23·
        10 months ago

        Ah, I didn’t look at the dates very closely, thanks for clarifying. I didn’t lose my smell after having covid, but I know others did, and I’d honestly forgotten about that symptom until you mentioned it. (Edit: it was actually @SmoochyPit@beehaw.org who mentioned that. Sorry. It’s been a long day …

        • snapoff@sh.itjust.works
          3·
          9 months ago

          No worries man, I had just seen it before and recognized the context. I didn’t lose my sense of smell when I had covid either, but everything tasted awful. And idk if it’s related but now I get whiffs of random smells that are unlikely to be present and other people say they don’t smell, like gravel and metal. So weird.

    • jj122@lemmings.world
      25·
      10 months ago

      My guess is this is a covid spike after a holiday where many candles were purchased/gifted.

    • SmoochyPit@beehaw.orgEnglish
      15·
      10 months ago

      I’m not sure how or why he would’ve come across that data, but as far as competing companies go…

      There definitely weren’t any widespread virus outbreaks in December 2021 and 2022 which affect the ability to smell, that’s for sure! /s

      Kidding aside, maybe covid was just a really complex form of corporate sabotage between candle companies 🤔

    • kora@lemmy.blahaj.zone
      101·
      10 months ago

      Or maybe they had a bad batch or ran out of a particular ingredient and everyone eventually got those batches they thought they could pass off 🤷🏻‍♀️

      • snapoff@sh.itjust.works
        13·
        10 months ago

        I think it’s so funny to imagine the boardroom Yankee Candle version of Mr Burns deciding to offload a bunch of crummy product during a covid surge. Ingenious

      • key@lemmy.keychat.orgEnglish
        3·
        9 months ago

        Or maybe Yankee candles have a baseline error rate in their manufacturing, insufficient QA, and are more commonly purchased over the holidays. The charts show absolute number of reviews and only during the post-covid period. To be semi-meaningful it should show the “no smell” reviews as a percentage of all reviews and include pre-covid years as a comparison.