Active geocaches worldwide

It is hard to imagine the person who maintains an active geocache outside Boulder and the person who schedules monthly Botox appointments in Beverly Hills having much to discuss, and yet their numbers have risen together for eighteen years (r = 0.959) with a warmth that suggests shared underlying civilization. We hide Tupperware in the woods; we redraw our faces in clinics. Both are hobbies with GPS coordinates.

Active geocaches worldwide grew from under 500,000 in 2005 to over 3 million by 2022, riding smartphone GPS and the oddly durable appeal of adult treasure hunts; US cosmetic procedures grew from about 2 million surgical and 11 million minimally invasive procedures to around 2.4 million and 23 million respectively, powered by injectable Botox, dermal fillers, and the quiet normalization of midday appointments that were once discreet. The two categories share a buyer profile more than you'd expect: both skew 30-55, both skew female, both skew urban and college-educated. Geocachers and Botox customers inhabit overlapping Venn diagrams in ways that would horrify both groups.

A Tupperware in a tree. A needle in a clinic. Both pursue something small and specific.