(NEXSTAR) — With the Easter season in full bloom, nowhere is that more apparent than in the candy and seasonal aisles of your grocery stores. And there's one particular — and controversial — Easter candy that always tends to get a little more attention than others.
Love them or hate them, it's the season of Peeps.
Personal finance outlet FinanceBuzz is currently offering one lucky applicant the opportunity to become its official “Chief Peeps Officer,” who will try and rate every Peeps flavor they can find and get paid to do it.
The chosen applicant will be given $200 to fund the assignment, which includes taste-testing 15 Peeps flavors and products, the company says. The "CPO" will document each Peep variant they try by submitting a photo of each, a rating on its taste and cuteness, and a brief written product review.
FinanceBuzz says it will use the data gathered for a future Peeps-related story.
Applicants must be at least 18 years old and based in the U.S. Applications are due by 11:59 p.m. ET on April 14. For more information, visit FinanceBuzz. The $1,000 payment will be received after all reviews are complete.
True or False: Peeps are indestructible?
Like it or not, there's a lot to appreciate about these marshmallow confections — including a pervasive internet rumor that Peeps can't be destroyed.
A tongue-in-cheek 1999 study at Emory University set out to prove or disprove the myth. There are entire Reddit threads dedicated to the concept, in addition to several “Destroying Peeps” YouTube experiments. At one time, there was even an entire website devoted to the concept, the now-defunct “100 Ways to Kill a Peep.”
The study tested Peeps against extreme cold, extreme heat, and dissolving liquids to see how hardy these little bunnies actually are. While the consensus appears to be that Peeps can be destroyed under some extreme conditions, there's also disagreement over what "destroyed" means in this context, as some tests left goo — and even one Peeps' little black eyes — behind.
Destructible or not, Peeps are here to stay.
As reported by Axios, in 2022 alone, Peeps accounted for 22% of all candy sold during the Easter season of that year — and the holiday generated an estimated $2.98 billion in total candy sales that year. Meanwhile, that year, Just Born collaborated on a survey of 1,000 people to find out how Americans feel about Peeps. Just Born says 81% of those polled said Peeps remind them of Easter, with over 68% saying they’d tasted Peeps before they reached 9 years old.
