Sriracha’s many spin offs, the appeal of Grace Helbig, a very fandom Valentine’s Day, and more. Kick your long weekend off right with the Friday Don’t Miss List!
1. Sriracha Spin Offs
Millennials’ food obsession and increasing spending power has made them major influencers, and their niche dining obsessions can turn into full blown crazes. Yesterday we looked at five of the food trends that the foodie generation could be blowing up next, but don’t miss the current state of one of their culinary love stories: sriracha. Millennials’ favorite condiment is continuing to get food spin offs, with Heinz jumping on the sriracha bandwagon with sriracha flavored ketchup, and Rogue brewery introducing a sriracha beer that is in fact quite spicy. While some believe the mainstream attention is the beginning of the end for the hot sauce, we don’t see the sriracha love ending anytime soon.
2. The Appeal of Grace
This week, we told you to watch the Truth campaign’s new “Left Swipe Dat” music video/PSA/parody, a new approach that is attempting to appeal to teens by playing on Tinder and starring Becky G, Fifth Harmony, King Bach and Grace Helbig. If you don’t know those names you should—these are the celebrities that young consumers care about. Don’t miss BuzzFeed’s breakdown of Grace Helbig’s appeal, which talks about her approachability and the intimacy that makes her 2 million YouTube subscribers love her, and other digital stars like her. Helbig has a hit book, and will be hosting a talk show on E! starting this spring, so whether you understand her appeal or not, she’s climbing up the fame ranks.
3. Tinder in Brooklyn
More than half of Millennials say they are single, and for them, the hunt for love is increasingly mobile. We looked at some of the more niche dating apps that have been earning buzz in Tinder’s wake, but don’t miss some of the swipe left adventures being chronicled in the blog Tinder in Brooklyn, which went viral this week. From profile pictures with lots of llamas to guys who pose with Grumpy cat, creator Lindsay Anderson posts some of the profiles that surface on her Tinder feed in a place where she says, “Everyone is trying to make themselves stand out in a sea of man buns.”
4. Musical Sweet Spot
While album sales continue to drop, music streaming is only growing. Millennials and teens are fuelling the growth of existing services that provide them the curated and varied music collections they want, when they want them, and soon there will be even more competitors vying for their attention. But don’t miss some of the current streaming giants’ innovations: Just in time for Valentine’s Day, Spotify has unveiled a playlist tool web app called Sweet Spot that reveals how in tune two listeners are. Each person plugs in a music artist they love, and Sweet Spot uses an algorithm to create a playlist that, “from one spectrum to the other, each one connected to the last by a degree,” and reveals how far apart their music choices are.
5. My Fandom Valentine
72% of Millennials 13-17-years-old are single, so they may not be buying chocolates and flowers tomorrow—but that’s no reason they should be ignored. Sour Patch Kids is targeting teens on Valentine’s Day with a contest on Wattpad, the home of lots of fan fiction. Members of the site are being asked to write love stories that end with a twist, and three “Wattpad influencers” contributed their own posts as inspiration. The winner’s story will be turned into an animated film and shared on Sour Patch’s social platforms.
