It's Official: Manatees Are a Trend

SO HOT RIGHT NOW Manatee Everyone in the journalism racket knows that three is a trend: Whenever a subject or theme recurs three times in a certain narrowly prescribed period of time and a journalist can spot it, give it a clever name, and track down an expert willing to affirm it, you've got yourself a trend. (This is also known as the St. John Process.)

So, what to make of the New York Times recent(-ish) obsession with manatees? In today's Thursday Styles section, Stephanie Rosenbloom (something of a one-woman trendspotting firm to some people's minds) reports that NBC has added a link in their viral comedy site Hornymanatee.com to a real charity called Savethemanatee.org which resulted in surprisingly high traffic and donations to the previously obscure group.