A Dubai Chocolate theory of the internet
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Who is Ryan Broderick and what is his “outer‑rim” internet focus?
Uh check, check, check, check, check.
Hi Ryan. Hello. Hey, nice shirt, PJ. Did you also buy this on Amazon?
I did. Are we wearing the same shirt? I think we're wearing the same shirt. Uh we got a discount because the sleeve monster ate our sleeves.
Yeah. Well, I just I'm done with sleeves, you know? I'm I'm done.
I this is not the part of zomber where sleeves are working for me. There's not I don't have very good AC here. And it's not that I think that everyone's just like whistling at my biceps as I walk down the street. I'm just like I've thrown in the towel on anything but comfort.
Yeah, I I think that's that's smart.
Okay, so why don't you introduce yourself?
Sure. My name is Ryan Broderick. I write a newsletter called Garbage Day and I host a podcast called Panic World.
And what you do in both of your projects and like your entire professional life is you survey, explore and catalog the internet, but particularly you've an affinity for like like if it were a Star Wars movie, it's like the outer rim far away from the Empire. Like you like the places where things are weirder, darker, stranger, the marginal edges of the internet.
I do. Uh but I also have like a a grand fascination with where culture comes from, which typically is from the outer rim, you know, and it kind of m makes its way in. But I I feel like I never really understand what's going on. So I always like to just sit down and be like, okay, like Why is everyone talking about Sydney Sweeney and jeans right now? Or why is everyone talking about these disgusting little dolls that look like little monster rats on TikTok? I feel like even when I was like younger, I just never understood like how everyone knew about something. And so the internet makes that easy. You know, you can just spend some time figuring it out.
And do you often this is something that I've sometimes wanted to ask you reading your work is like for me, the weird rat dolls, laboo boo. My first encounter with laboo boos was I was walking down the street in Manhattan and I passed what any other month would have been one of those sidewalk kiosks where they sell newspapers. And because the labu boo craze had hit such a fever pitch, the person who ran the kiosk had converted. To just selling laboo boo. Sure. And so it was just an entire little side store of knockoff labu-boo. And I was like, oh, this is a thing that I don't know anything about and like kind of worked backwards. Do you like it when you're trying to understand how a trend has happened, is it like you work out and in?
Like, do you often watch things bubble from outside to the center? Or is it more often something becomes popular and then you work backwards to figure out how it got there? That way.
It's like a bit of both. I mean, every once in a while I'll catch something four or five weeks later, and I'm like, I don't know what this is. And I have to like fight the very millennial urge to like dismiss it. So I'm like, okay, like let's like engage with whatever this is and figure it out. But then I feel like because of the internet and doing this job for so long, I do see things fairly early. And that causes like another problem where it's like you don't want to over. Overindex. So there's like a sweet spot where like if you hit it, you're early, but it's still relevant. Yes. Um, but it's a constant sort of talking to myself about like, okay, like I gotta do something about this now, or I gotta look into this, you know, and and and fight the urge to just not care, um, which is hard.
I often
give in to the urge to not care these days, but that's why I'm glad that you exist because I can borrow your mind. Happy to help. Okay, so the reason that I wanted to talk to you today is I wanted to ask you about one of these things, like one of these waves that sort of seem to come from nowhere and then be everywhere. I feel like six months ago, I had never heard the words Dubai and chocolate next to each other. Now I like in the world online, I'm just like constantly seeing the phrase Dubai chocolate. I would just like to know like, what even is the origin story of Dubai chocolate?
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
Who is Ryan Broderick and what is his “outer‑rim” internet focus?
0:26–5:22
2
What is the origin story of Dubai Chocolate and who created it?
5:22–9:58
3
How did the viral TikTok video of Maria Vejera eating the candy bar spark the trend?
9:58–16:00
4
What role does TikTok’s social‑shopping feature play in spreading Dubai Chocolate?
16:00–20:39
5
How does Chinese hyper‑consumerism differ from past American viral trends?
20:39–25:36
6
Why does the internet act like “pornography” – raw stimulus without story – according to the hosts?
25:36–30:06
7
How do Gen Z users struggle to create and recognize “coolness” in a popularity‑driven culture?
30:06–35:10
8
What conclusions do Ryan and his guest draw about the future of viral product culture?
35:10–38:39