Yankee Candle sells over 600 different scents, and if you’ve ever seen one for sale at a dollar store, you know those flavors can vary drastically . While many of them seem relatively normal—black cherry, pine, cookies—some of Yankee Candle’s scents are comically abstract. What exactly does «man town» smell like? IPAs, Doritos, and football, maybe? Yankee Candle doesn’t simply sell scented candles, they sell the idea of something and choose a corresponding scent to go with it.

Twitter user @undeniablyalex recently decided to do an in-depth analysis of Yankee Candle’s different «stages of abstraction» and it’s pretty entertaining if you’re into semiotics. He begins with an example of the first stage of abstraction using a «black cherry» Yankee Candle: «The scent represents a physical object where the object’s aroma is one of its distinct properties.» By the end, @undeniablyalex explains the «sweet nothings» stage of abstraction: «The scent represents a property detached from any object, the absence of an object is in fact part of the scent. Total abstraction.»

Keep scrolling for @undeniablyalex‘s complete analysis and funny reactions from the thread.