In which I opine about blueberry stems...

Know what really grinds my gears?

Yeah, pop references with no context so boomers can get the joke.

Anyway, that's not today's topic. Today's topic is blueberry stems. Why are those a thing? I mean, I get that they're fruit and they need a stem to grow on the plant but why can't they remove the stems when they package them for sale?

Blueberries, or "blewbs" as I'm sure the influistas call them, are technically fruit but, realistically, they're just natural coloring agents for muffins and oatmeal and such. They lend a pretty blue, purple, and/or red color to whatever they're cooked into, adding (as the influentia call it) "A pop! Of color!". (They have no significant flavor. If they did the blue fake-fruit color code would be for blueberry, not raspberry, amiright?)

Anyway, that's not the point. The point is the stems. A little six ounce box of blueberries has a hundred or so berries in it. About 6 of those blewbs have hard little stems still attached. Big-name influentiers talk about food having "mouth feel" which means how the food, uh, feels in their mouth, I guess. If blewbs are supposed to have a "mouth feel" it certainly wouldn't include random tiny hard sticks, would it?!

Influigentrifiers have convinced us (for certain values of "us") that, say, tomatoes sold while still on their natal stem signifies a higher quality of tomato being bought. (Don't look into it, just believe.) How 'bout blueberry packers sort blewbs with intact stems into upscale packaging for those who want to quietly assert that they manually de-stemmed their blewbs before baking them into the bespoke muffins they're serving their friends at brunch or tea or whatever, and to ask forbearance if they missed one or two. "It's a sign of good luck if you find one!" they'll say.

That would leave the plain no-stem blueberries for us common folk who, frankly, after a long day convincing some dumb LLM to quit writing buggy code or misleading emails, just don't have the energy to sort through every damn blueberry for wayward stems.

Some marketing jingle influegenstia could come up with a catchy tune to help us identify the stemless ones. As a gift, here's a recycled and updated bit from the 70s era to get you started:

"No stems, no seeds that you don't need. Massachusetts blewbs are bad-ass..." Uh, blewbs, I guess. Hey, I'm not an influengager, I'm just the idea guy.

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Study guide for extra credit:

1. Can you identify others who've used "blewbs" to refer to blueberries? If not, are you looking hard enough?
2. What is an influista?
3. Who are the influentia?
4. What are the distinguishing characteristics of influentiers, influigentrifiers, and influegenstia?
5. How many hours per day of social media engagement does it take to maintain one's status an influengager?

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Written and posted and copyrighted on 2026-03-14 by me. Quote me if you want (linking to this post would be nice, too) but no one and no thing have permission to slurp this into any LLM vomit factory as training data.

© 2026 Scott GrantSmith. All rights reserved