"She swallowed the bottle
While I sit back and smoke gelato.
Walk in my mansion Twenty thousand paintin’ Picasso"
- Offset, on Calvin Harris’s "Slide"
feat. Frank Ocean & Migos
Purple. Frosty. An aroma as rich and creamy as the name implies: Gelato. It’s the namesake of a freestyle by Tyler the Creator, and a mixtape by Young Dolph & Little Yachty.
Full transparency: I had to google who Young Dolph is. Dolph, like Gelato, is part of a prominent section of the cannabis world. I call it The Swagosphere. It’s the land where hype, Instagram posts and Tik Tok videos swirl together into a decadent milkshake of influence. Social media post to peptide. It’s changing Cannabis down to its DNA.
If I understood The Swagosphere better I’d probably be a millionaire by now. Cookies has done well for itself. According to businessinsider.com and Berner [Cookies’s founder] the brand is worth over one billion dollars.
Of all the things I love about cannabis, its instagrammability isn’t one of them. Alas, I’ll attempt to guide you and I both...
#into-the-swagosphere
#high-life
#gelato-33
instagram, cookies and the effect of hype on cannabis genetics
#cookies
#berner
Gelato #33
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Gelato has stacked, bulky calyxes with the appearance of a winter’s frost. The flower has a tendency to produce anthocyanin. That’s the compound which makes weed purple. It does the same thing in the skins of grapes. The strain tends to produce potency, often testing upwards of 30% THC.
The dominant terpene in Gelato #33 is Beta-Caryophyllene, which is considered to be more on the relaxing side. One can see why Offset likes to sit back and smoke Gelato.
To me, Gelato smells purple. It shares similarities with White Tahoe Cookies, Purple Punch, and countless other strains with that cereal milk smell.
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Gelato #33
Leave it to Cannabis enthusiasts to describe scents with color. What does it mean to smell purple? A great budtender I knew years ago described it as “the milk from a bowl of fruity pebbles.” Bravo
This purpley smell Gelato has comes from its parent strain Sunset Sherbet. Sunset Sherbet looks very similar to Gelato. The calyxes look like muscular arms forming triangular points. To me, this structure is reminiscent of Platinum Kush. Trimmed buds look like solitaire diamonds. The rounded quality of the bud structures is influenced by the Thin Mint GSC.
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Gelato was developed by Mario Guzman, better known as Mr. Sherbinski. He is part of the Cookies group, including other Swagosphere heavyweights like Jigga and Berner. They are legendary for producing myriads of magnificent marijuana strains. Of all the popular genetics bred by Sherbinski, Gelato stands head, shoulders, and musclebound-arm-like-calyxes above the rest. The cherry on top.
In the world of recreational cannabis, THC percentage is the most important factor for consumers. People tend to conflate THC with value. Higher price for a higher THC feels justified. Gelato’s Sequoia-high potency is in large part responsible for its popularity.
On top of high THC, Gelato is a beautiful strain. The buds are dense, and covered in trichomes. The nose is consistent. Pleasant. Dessert cannabis is a favorite among consumers. Wedding Cake, Sundae Driver, Key Lime Pie – there are countless sweet-tooth strains on the market.
Breeders keep going back to the well. Gelato is a strain that checks most boxes for most cannabis consumers. That’s why #gelato is a common feature on posts across social media. Cookies strains generate so much hype that even the blue disposable bags they sell their flower in are trendy to post on Instagram.
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Cookies
Retail Packaging
Cannabis & Social Media: MassRoots, Social Club & Instagram
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MassRoots may be the most successful cannabis business you’ve never heard of. It went from being founders Isaac Deitrecht and Tyler Knight’s cannabis-haze inspired dream to a platform with nearly a million users and over a thousand advertisers. It even traded on the stock exchange. Ticker MSRT.
The concept was simple: a place where users can post pictures of themselves smoking joints without showing it off in front of their grandparents on Facebook.
The market was ripe because Instagram has been classically anti-cannabis. IG has a strict set of rules. Cannabis marketers cannot advertise anything for sale. Users and businesses alike in the cannabis space flocked to MassRoots for its unrestricted, cannabis-focused space.
Unfortunately, Instagram isn’t the only major company with a weed bias. MassRoots’ popularity rocketed until catching the eye of Apple. Apple found a social media network dedicated entirely to cannabis too legally gray to allow it to continue. They removed it from the IOS store in 2015. In response, MassRoots went grassroots. They led a campaign of letter writing which saw 10,000 users personally email Apple regarding this ban. Eventually, it was reversed, along with Apple’s new policy. This paved the way for Cannabis to continue its rise in the digital world. While Apple waned, Instagram fervently pursued their war on weed.
Berner (@berner415) has 1.9 million followers on Instagram. To put that in perspective, at the time of this writing @jesus only has 611,000. Despite this huge following, Berner’s account was frequently suspended due to cannabis content. In response, Berner released his own social network in July of 2019.
The Social Club touted itself as a bastion of unrestricted free speech on the internet. What a concept. The consequences were predictable. What started as a space for dab videos and bud pictures quickly became a hub for the “weird ass porn community,” according to Berner.
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According to the Wharton School of Business, Facebook has committed to spending 3.7 billion dollars in 2023 on content moderation. While it doesn’t come cheap, a small investment from The Social Club would have gone a long way. The website was shut down in 2019, although they have recently relaunched in a partnership with successful cannabis tech company Weedmaps. Time till tell if they find success recycling their strategy. Speaking of recycling, whatever happened to MassRoots?
Massroots.com also went dark in November of 2020. After several attempts to adapt toward a profitable strategy in the cannabis market, they have completely pivoted. Months after shutting down their websitte, they acquired Empire Recycling, Inc. They launched a new site: cashforclunkers.com, and pivoted entirely toward the scrap metal and recycling business. What used to trade as MSRT on the stock market now trades as GWAV (Greenwave.) Another cannabis social media company scrapped.
With few alternatives, cannabis businesses have had to learn to play by Instagram’s rules in order to stay online. There are many other marijuana social networks out there. Still, Instagram reigns supreme. Cannabis has shaped social media. The reverse is true, too.
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The Genetics of Hype Strains
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Jealousy. I’m not talking about the unpleasant state of mind wherein one feels jilted. I’m talking about Leafly’s 2022 Strain of the Year.
Its genetic heritage? Sherbet BX1 x Gelato #41. Sounds familiar.
Let’s take a walk through the last few years of Leafly’s top billed strains: Dosidoes, Runtz, Wedding Cake, Gelato. A few commonalities are hard to miss. First, three of the above are either Cookies genetics, or descendants. Second, every single one bears a dessert name. Third: they’re all good, purple-tasting, super frosty strains with a dense structure. [They also have relatively short flowering times. This means quicker harvests, and higher yearly yields.]
Don’t get me wrong. Gelato is a phenomenal strain. It takes a great deal of concentrated effort to produce a genetic like this, especially a stable one.
It’s just that there has to be room for more than cereal-milky Indicas. Whatever happened to the citrusy sweet-green notes of Space Queen or its derivatives? What about the cocoa-puffs from Chocolope? Even Blue Dream is hard to come by in the Oregon market these days. The vast majority of indoor flowers are in some way Gelato, Purple Punch, or Runtz.
One day, I hope cannabis consumers will favor variety over monoculture. If we continue to buy weed because it’s 30% THC and purple we’ll lose some of the most valuable genetics in cannabis.
Next time you go into a dispensary, try to find something different. Instead of asking for the highest THC, just ask for a flavor. Try something gassy. Try something cheesy. See what else the plant has to offer.
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By Will Irwin