3 Ways the Pumpkin Spice Craze Is Creepier Than You Think

Pumpkin spice-flavored everything has become such an "outrageous" pop culture staple that we could create an entire list solely made up of other rubber-stamped lists about "crazy pumpkin-flavored products" (like this, this, this, this, this, and this). And yet, the trend doesn't appear to be tapering off. Why is that?

Obviously, it's time for someone to carve the lid off this once and for all. So sit back and allow us to take you down the festive-smelling rabbit hole ...

#3. Pumpkin Is a Made-Up Flavor (That Has Nothing to Do With Pumpkins)

True story: pumpkins actually taste like nature's cardboard -- a collection of seeds and mucus wrapped in an impossible shell of inedible sadness. Once a year we carve them to look like fear, but other than that there's basically no reason for them to exist.

Melty-faced Stallone-o'-lantern wholeheartedly agrees.

Case in point -- that pumpkin pie you enjoyed as a kid? Actually made from a variety of squash, flavored with signature spices. It's those spices that are associated with the "pumpkin" flavoring we stick in our vodkas and Oreos and Starbucks at varying degrees of intensity. In other words, much like grape and watermelon flavoring, "pumpkin spice" might as well taste like the pope's farts so long as the label is the same. And yet, despite tasting nothing like pumpkins, the sale of pumpkin spice has amazingly boosted the sale of actual goddamned pumpkins 34 percent in the last five years -- all by association. It's almost as if a totally different beast is in play besides our sincere love of this worthless fall crop.

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"The spice must flow."

#2. The Industry Fakes a Shortage So Much That There's a Black Market for It

Let's get one thing clear -- pumpkin spice is seasonal by choice and choice alone. As we've already pointed out, nothing about the flavor relies on the harvesting of its namesake, and so if we wanted to we could be lathering in the stuff head-to-toe every morning. Instead, the industry shuts down the moment spring hits, creating a controlled withdrawal from the seductive aroma of cinnamon and nutmeg.

Jason Iannone
If only there were a way to procure such rare and exotic treasures.

So why not just keep the doors open all year round? Well, as any rookie marketing strategist could tell you, there's a little something called "artificial demand" used to hype goods and services that are otherwise completely worthless. By limiting it to one season, the pumpkin spice industry has created scarcity that gives the product such a heightened value that there is actually an underground offseason black market of monstrously sad humans hawking substitute products on eBay. So instead of opening the floodgates, they've actually created a subculture of consumers alerting one another about which Starbucks are selling pumpkin spice lattes later or earlier in the fall.

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Pictured: A modern-day squashbuckler.