Let’s start with: Correlation is not causation. (Listen to your imploring math teachers, kids; the ramifications of shoddy data science are no joke.) And yet, when the most popular band in the world releases a song primly named after a pantry staple, one has to wonder whether it packed enough of a Pavlovian punch to actually influence purchasing patterns of said pantry staple.⁠ ⁠ On May 21st, BTS released “Butter” as a single. The earworm made immediate conquest of music charts; it came in at Number Two on the Rolling Stone 100 Songs Chart with the second-highest debut of 2021 (beat out only by Olivia Rodrigo’s “Drivers License”) and with the highest debut of the year by song sales. And in the week after May 21st, U.S. butter-sales volume jumped 30 percent higher than in the same week in 2019, Alan Bjerga, communications lead for the American Butter Institute and the National Milk Producers Federation, confirms to Rolling Stone, citing numbers from the butter and butter blends syndicated database of research firm IRI.⁠ ⁠ Might butter’s uptick at the end of May 2021 be a direct bump from the ferocious foothold of “Butter” on American audiences, subliminally triggering salivary glands and sending people flying straight from cars — where the K-pop tune had been making ceaseless circuit on pop radio — and into Kroger and Safeway dairy aisles?⁠ ⁠ Tap the link in our bio to read more.⁠ ⁠ Photo Illustration by Joe Rodriguez. Images used in illustration: Lee Jin-man/AP Images (BTS); Butter Stick: LEVENT KONUK/Adobe Stock