Pumpkin spice products on shelves

Between 2012 and 2022, LGBTQ+ self-identification and pumpkin spice products on shelves both grew, correlating at 0.9651 across eleven data points. The reading that pumpkin spice is a gateway to self-discovery is not supported by any research, but it is exactly the kind of finding that would go viral on social media, which is probably how both trends grew in the first place. What the data actually shows is that two aspects of American cultural expansion—one in identity, one in seasonal flavor—grew during the same decade because the 2010s were a decade of expansion in almost everything. The spice is not the mechanism. The decade is.

LGBTQ+ self-identification grew from 3.5% to over 7%, driven by generational change and reduced stigma. Pumpkin spice products expanded from a few hundred to thousands of SKUs, driven by retailer imitation and consumer demand for seasonal novelty. Both are cultural expansion stories across the same 11-year window, growing because the 2010s favored openness, novelty, and proliferation in nearly every domain.

A decade of cultural expansion will produce correlations between any two expanding cultural phenomena. The data describes the decade, not a relationship between identity and flavoring.