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Is this a familiar scenario to anyone? You read an article talking about the latest hot trend, that - according to the article - has been growing hugely in popularity over the last few months/years, and is now utterly ubiquitous, so that you can't move without tripping over it. "I have never heard of this thing before!" you think, or, if it's a item of fashionable clothing, "I've never seen anyone wearing this." But then, over the next few days, you come across it, or references to it, at least 4 times a day.
This happens to me all the time. Today it was bubble tea, which I'd never heard of until I read about it on the BBC website today. A few hours later, walking through Cowes, I saw 3 different places advertising it very prominently.*
I have never worked out if said Thing has indeed been ubiquitous all around me for months, and I've failed to notice it until the article draws my attention to it, or if the articles exaggerate the ubiquity of the Thing, and are written just at the point at which it goes from "big in trendy journalist circles in London" to "beginning to appear in the rest of the country." Or maybe everyone else also reads the article, and goes, "Ooh! I've never heard of this, but it's the hot new thing! I must rush out and buy it / wear it / ask in the library for books about it / start selling it in my tea shop!"
* Although, admittedly, this is hardly surprising, since it's Cowes Week at the moment, and Cowes is packed full of stalls and trendy pop-up bars, all trying to appeal to affluent yachty types, so it could well be that Cowes was a bubble-tea-free zone until this week, and will return to a bubble-tea-free state next weekend.
This happens to me all the time. Today it was bubble tea, which I'd never heard of until I read about it on the BBC website today. A few hours later, walking through Cowes, I saw 3 different places advertising it very prominently.*
I have never worked out if said Thing has indeed been ubiquitous all around me for months, and I've failed to notice it until the article draws my attention to it, or if the articles exaggerate the ubiquity of the Thing, and are written just at the point at which it goes from "big in trendy journalist circles in London" to "beginning to appear in the rest of the country." Or maybe everyone else also reads the article, and goes, "Ooh! I've never heard of this, but it's the hot new thing! I must rush out and buy it / wear it / ask in the library for books about it / start selling it in my tea shop!"
* Although, admittedly, this is hardly surprising, since it's Cowes Week at the moment, and Cowes is packed full of stalls and trendy pop-up bars, all trying to appeal to affluent yachty types, so it could well be that Cowes was a bubble-tea-free zone until this week, and will return to a bubble-tea-free state next weekend.
