Business
Josephine Antoci: Erewhon’s viral tastemaker to the stars
Josephine Antoci, photographed at Erewhon in Santa Monica on Aug. 11.
What Josephine Antoci likes, Erewhon sells. And if Erewhon sells it — sea moss gels, kale chips, bone broth tonics, paleo bagels, celebrity smoothies — it’s almost guaranteed to become a viral sensation among the hot and health-obsessed.
Antoci is co-owner and chief tastemaker of the hyper-trendy luxury organic grocer: first in line to vet and sample every prospective product, and the final authority on which ones make the cut.
“I respect the level of influence that I have, but I don’t view myself as a trendsetter,” she said. “I’m never trying to chase the next big thing.”
Erewhon has been the biggest thing in the grocery business since Antoci and her husband, Tony, bought the Los Angeles company in 2011 and gave its one remaining store an aesthetic glow-up and merchandise overhaul.
Discover the change-makers who are shaping every cultural corner of Los Angeles. This week we bring you The Creators, who are leaving their mark in film, art, music and more. Come back each Sunday for another installment.
The revitalized Erewhon shot to cult status, fueled by frequent A-list sightings and an army of lifestyle influencers who obsessively documented their grocery pilgrimages on social media. What was once a mundane chore had turned into a super-premium, brag-worthy experience.
One store became 10. The Kardashians, the Biebers and the Beckhams are regulars. Erewhon-branded merch, including $185 hoodies and $150 sweatpants, is an actual thing. For a certain demographic, visiting an Erewhon for a combo plate with vegan buffalo cauliflower is a tourist bucket-list item and passes as a reasonable first-date activity.
All of the chain’s locations are in affluent areas — Beverly Hills, Calabasas, Culver City and Venice among them — and their meticulously curated, endlessly photographed shelves are a reflection of Antoci’s discerning palate, rigorous quality standards and impeccable eye for identifying the next wellness craze.
On a Friday morning last summer, Antoci, 57, arrived at the Santa Monica Erewhon fresh from a workout and asked the store director for a $15 Post Workout Smoothie, a gluten-free blend of organic blueberries, organic chia seeds, organic coconut water, lucuma, maca and vanilla collagen. It’s one of the lesser-known drinks at the tonic bar, the top seller still being Hailey Bieber’s Strawberry Glaze Skin Smoothie, which Antoci said is purchased between 45,000 and 50,000 times a month companywide.
Antoci has lived in L.A. ever since leaving Taipei, Taiwan, where she was born and raised, to move in with a cousin in Cheviot Hills at 18. She got her GED and attended Santa Monica College for a couple of years before transferring to UCLA, where she majored in economics.
Within weeks of immigrating, she met Tony Antoci at a Chinese takeout restaurant in Beverly Hills that was owned by her extended family. They had their first date at Magic Mountain, married eight years later and have three children, all now in their 20s and employed by Erewhon.
The Antocis previously owned a food distribution business called Superior Anhausner Foods that sold groceries and supplies to restaurants around Southern California. She worked in sales; after the couple sold the company in 2009 to wholesale juggernaut Sysco, running a grocery store seemed like a logical pivot.
At Erewhon, Josephine is president and Tony is chief executive. He manages the behind-the-scenes business operations, she said, while “I handle everything that you can see.”
Antoci settled into a corner table on the store’s elevated, planter-box-filled patio with her smoothie, the deep purple concoction a striking contrast against her sleek all-black outfit: thin black sweater, loose satiny black pants, chunky black sunglasses and braided black platform sandals.
‘Those cool new weird things are what make us special, and her testing every single week, for hours on end, is what makes this place Erewhon. Her thing is like, “If I wouldn’t bring it into my house, I’m not going to bring it into the store.”’
— Alec Antoci, vice president of brand and marketing at Erewhon, on his mother’s buying philosophy
She took a sip of her Post Workout Smoothie. “Very clean,” she said, not overly sweet, packed with protein and electrolytes, and free of bananas (she doesn’t care for them right after exercising). Despite rumors, Antoci said the many stars who have had a featured smoothie at Erewhon — the list includes Gisele Bündchen, Olivia Rodrigo and Kendall Jenner — don’t pay for the honor; instead, Erewhon donates $2 per smoothie sold to a charity of the celebrity’s choice.
Antoci is high-energy yet down-to-earth, warm and engaging but direct about what she wants — especially when it comes to the stores. She drops in unannounced several times a week, inspecting the displays, rearranging items herself and flagging down the head chef if she notices a dish in the cafe looks wilted or undersauced.
Thousands of brands large and small try to make it into Erewhon every year, hoping to tap into the elite grocery chain’s coveted customer base: generally young, eager to spend on whatever is in at the moment and likely to hype it on TikTok and Instagram. Antoci is the gatekeeper, so everyone wants to know what she likes.
In Erewhon’s produce department and in its tonic bars and cafes, her top priority is using organic ingredients.
With packaged products, Antoci scrutinizes every ingredient profile. She oversees a methodical review process that begins with an online submission form, which encourages vendors to “source local, organic, non-GMO, sustainable, biodynamic and/or regenerative-farmed ingredients that cater to multiple dietary preferences.”
Products must be free of processed sugar, bleached flour, canola oil and yeast extracts. Another red flag is anything heavily processed, she said.
Brands that clear the prescreening hurdle are invited to submit samples. Once a week, Antoci drives across town to Erewhon’s downtown headquarters, where she and two small teams — one for grocery, the other for health and beauty — gather in a conference room and tear open packages of protein powders and superfood balls, dip into jars of bone broth and slather hyaluronic sea serums onto their faces. Sometimes she’ll take products back to her Brentwood home for further testing and to seek input from her family.
“She says no 99% of the time,” said Alec Antoci, 25, the eldest of her three children and Erewhon’s vice president of brand and marketing.
Alec spent his teens and early 20s helping out around Erewhon, a fast-tracked corporate education that included partaking in the human guinea pig sample sessions led by his mother. Antoci has a sly sense of humor, and Alec laughed as he told stories of how, affecting an innocent expression, she would urge employees to taste bizarre products, and the time they tried too many CBD edibles.
“If she’s never seen it before, she’s like, ‘Let’s try it, let’s bring it in, it’s got benefits, it’s good for you, it’s clean,’” he said. “It’s just trying to see trends like that and really try to forward-think, like, what would people want in health and wellness?”
Sometimes Erewhon will already be oversaturated in a particular category, resulting in a no. Other times, Antoci will love something so much that she’ll ask the founder to manufacture it under Erewhon’s private-label umbrella. Unlike supermarket brands where private-label is often the cheaper alternative, at Erewhon it’s positioned as a prestige line that includes olive oil, chocolate, honey, coffee, candles and dietary supplements.
Many products fall just short of getting Antoci’s stamp of approval. Say, for instance, a coconut bacon maker wants to sell at Erewhon, but the vegan snack is dusted with sugar that isn’t organic — an automatic rejection.
“A lot of small founders will say, ‘OK, we’ll change the ingredients just for you guys,’” Antoci said. Once the item is reformulated and the packaging updated, “Then we would bring it in. If you’re a founder, getting your foot into Erewhon will get you basically anywhere, really.”
Two years ago, Antoci selected Agent Nateur, a Los Angeles skincare and supplements brand, to join the vendor lineup at Erewhon. Soon after, the brand’s $99 marine collagen and pearl powder began showing up in viral TikTok videos about “what hot girls are buying from Erewhon,” founder Jena Covello said.
The product “really catapulted after we launched it at Erewhon,” she said.
Antoci possesses a keen sense of what’s up and coming, correctly predicting several categories that went on to become big sellers at Erewhon.
“Kombucha’s something she pushed early,” Alec said. “Functional lemonades, soda alternatives and also water alternatives as well, like chlorophyll water, charcoal water, hydrogen water, oxygenated water. Those cool new weird things are what make us special, and her testing every single week, for hours on end, is what makes this place Erewhon. Her thing is like, ‘If I wouldn’t bring it into my house, I’m not going to bring it into the store.’”
Antoci possesses a keen sense of what’s up and coming, correctly predicting several categories that went on to become big sellers at Erewhon.
That’s not to say everything has to taste amazing. Alec recalled sampling a particularly foul, sticky tar-like substance called shilajit, which he described as “the worst. Like, disgusting.” But the supplement was rich in antioxidants, commonly used in ayurvedic medicine and hard to find. Antoci gave the seller the green light. Now a tiny jar is sold at Erewhon for $70.
Antoci’s first encounter with Erewhon was in the 1990s, when one of her previous company’s restaurant clients, the chef of the legendary Rex il Ristorante in downtown L.A., placed an order for spelt. Antoci had never heard of the ancient grain but said yes, figuring she’d be able to locate it somewhere. She did, at the Erewhon store on Beverly Boulevard.
Erewhon was founded in 1966 by Japanese immigrants Michio and Aveline Kushi — pioneers of the natural-foods macrobiotic movement — who began selling imported organic goods such as brown rice and soy sauce out of their Boston home with help from their young children.
Erewhon grew to three stores and a distribution facility on the East Coast, and in 1969, the company opened a location in L.A. on Beverly Boulevard.
The Kushis sold the company in the 1970s. By the time the Antocis acquired the brand, it had dwindled to a single shabby location next to the Grove lined with bulk bins of unique grains and nuts.
Antoci preserved Erewhon’s macrobiotic, natural-foods core but gave the store the high-end modern L.A. treatment: bright, design-forward and stocked with aspirational, good-for-you products sold at steep prices.
“I want it to feel like it’s a happy place,” Antoci said. “I don’t want it to be: ‘I need to go grocery shopping and, ugh, it’s such a drag.’”
Just as it was in its earliest days, Erewhon is again a close-knit family business. Twenty-three-year-old Austin helps his dad with Erewhon’s growing real estate portfolio — the company has been actively looking for retail space in Orange County — and Maddy, 22, is a marketing coordinator, assisting on the brand’s video and photo shoots for social media.
Their mother, Alec said, is a talented home cook who finds inspiration at the restaurants they frequent. She recently helped develop a miso black cod for Erewhon’s cafe that is similar to the iconic version at Nobu, as well as a line of wontons, dumplings and pot stickers that the grocer released in October (Din Tai Fung is one of her go-to restaurants).
“I’ve been working on this for a long time,” Antoci said. “I’ve always loved dumplings, but I can’t find organic dumplings.”
Suddenly the customer at the next table over, overhearing the conversation, leaned over.
“Are you the owner of Erewhon?” he said, then added almost breathlessly: “I’m Tanner, hi, it’s nice to meet you, I’m a big fan, I love the store.”
Tanner said he lived around the corner and had been coming to Erewhon every day to work on the patio and grab lunch (“I can eat whatever I want and I know it’s going to be healthy,” he said). Antoci glanced over at the tabletop in front of him, empty save for a can of Diet Coke.
“I bring my own because they don’t sell Diet Coke,” he said sheepishly. “People make fun of me; they’re like, ‘Where did you get that?’”
“You know, Olipop has a low-calorie,” Antoci said, recommending a small-batch prebiotic soda that is sold at Erewhon. “Tastes like Coke.”
Tanner hesitated, looking pained at the thought of replacing his Diet Coke with a “digestive health beverage” made of plant fibers.
Antoci quickly course-corrected.
“You know — everything in moderation,” she said brightly. “Just once in a while is fine. It’s all good.”
The Trump administration will begin to garnish the pay of student loan borrowers in January, the Department of Education said Tuesday, stepping up a repayment enforcement effort that began this year.
Beginning the week of Jan. 7, roughly 1,000 borrowers who are in default will receive notices informing them of their status, according to an email from the department. The number of notices will increase on a monthly basis.
The collection activities are “conducted only after student and parent borrowers have been provided sufficient notice and opportunity to repay their loans,” according to the email, which was unsigned.
The announcement comes as many Americans are already struggling financially, and the cost of living is top of mind. The wage garnishing could compound the effects on lower-income families contending with a stressed economy, employment concerns and health care premiums that are set to rise for millions of people.
The email did not contain any details about the nature of the garnishment, such as how much would be deducted from wages, but according to the government’s student aid website, up to 15 percent of a borrower’s take-home pay can be withheld. The government typically directs employers to withhold a certain amount, similar to a payroll tax.
A borrower should be sent a notice of the government’s intent 30 days before the seizure begins, according to the website, StudentAid.gov.
The administration ended a five-year reprieve on student loan repayments in May, paving the way for forced collections — meaning tax refunds and other federal payments, like Social Security, could be withheld and applied toward debt payments.
That move ushered in the end of pandemic-era relief that began in March 2020, when payments were paused. More than 9 percent of total student debt reported between July and September was more than 90 days delinquent or in default, according to the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. In April, only one-third of the 38 million Americans who owed money for college or graduate school and should have been making payments actually were, according to government data.
“It’s going to be more painful as you move down the income distribution,” said Michael Roberts, a professor of finance at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. But, he added, borrowers have to contend with the fact that they did take out money, even as government policies allowed many to put the loans at the back of their minds.
After several extensions by the Biden administration, payments resumed in October 2023, but borrowers were not penalized for defaulting until last year. About five million borrowers are in default, and millions more are expected to be close to missing payments.
The government had signaled this year that it would send notices that could lead to the garnishing of a portion of a borrower’s paycheck. Being in collections and in default can damage credit scores.
The government garnished wages before the pandemic pause, said Betsy Mayotte, president of the Institute of Student Loan Advisors, which provides free advice for borrowers. But the 2020 collections pause was the first she was aware of, she said, and that may make the deductions more shocking for people who have not had to pay for years.
“There’s a lot of defaulted borrowers that think that there was a mistake made somewhere along the line, or the Department of Education forgot about them,” Ms. Mayotte said. “I think this is going to catch a lot of them off guard.”
The first day after a missed payment, a loan becomes delinquent. After a certain amount of time in delinquency, usually 270 days, the loan is considered in default — the kind of loan determines the time period. If someone defaults on a federal student loan, the entire balance becomes due immediately. Then the loan holder can begin collections, including on wages.
But there are options to reorganize the defaulted loans, including consolidation or rehabilitation, which requires making a certain number of consecutive payments determined by the holder.
Often, people who default on debt owe the smallest amounts, said Constantine Yannelis, an economics professor at the University of Cambridge who researches U.S. student loans.
“They’re often dropouts or they went to two-year, for-profit colleges, and people who spent many, many years in schools, like doctors or lawyers, have very low default rates,” he said.
This year, millions of borrowers saw their credit scores drop after the pause on penalties was lifted. If someone does not earn an income, the government can take the person to court. But, practically speaking, a borrower’s credit score will plummet.
Dr. Yannelis added that a common reason people default was that they were not aware of the repayment options. There are plans that allow borrowers to pay 10 percent of their income rather than having 15 percent garnished, for example.
The whiplash policy changes around the time of the pandemic were “a terrible thing from a borrower-welfare perspective,” Dr. Yannelis said. “Policy uncertainty is really terrible for borrowers.”
In the midst of attempting to complete filming on his western anthology ”Horizon: An American Saga,” Kevin Costner is facing another legal dispute over the production.
On Monday, Western Costume Co. sued Costner and the production companies behind the epic western, claiming unpaid costume fees and damages to some of the clothing during the filming of the series’ second episode.
“The costumes are costly to replace if damaged or not returned,” states the complaint, which included copies of invoices for about $134,000 in costume rentals. “Without a reasonable basis for doing so and/or with reckless regard to the consequences, defendants failed to pay for the rented costumes and failed to return the costumes undamaged.”
Western Costume, the iconic business based in North Hollywood, is seeking to recover roughly $440,000, including legal fees, according to the lawsuit filed Monday in Los Angeles Superior Court.
A spokesperson for Costner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The lawsuit is the latest in a series of legal and financial problems that have dogged the sprawling western drama, which Costner directed, co-wrote, starred in and partially funded.
In May, United Costume Corp., sued the production, claiming $350,000 in unpaid fees for the first two chapters of “Horizon.” Two months later, the costume firm filed to dismiss the suit with prejudice.
In May, Devyn LaBella, a stunt performer on “Chapter 2,” sued the production for sexual discrimination, harassment and retaliation in Los Angeles Superior Court. LaBella alleged an unscripted rape scene was filmed without the presence of a contractually mandated intimacy coordinator.
In a motion filed in August to get the suit tossed, Costner said he had reviewed LaBella’s complaint and was “shocked at the false and misleading allegations she was making.”
In October, a Los Angeles Superior Court judge denied Costner’s anti-SLAPP motion to dismiss the case. The judge also denied LaBella’s claim that Costner had interfered with her civil rights through the use of intimidation or coercion with respect to her participation in the filming of a rape scene, but allowed several of her other claims to proceed.
The case is pending.
The production is also facing an arbitration claim for alleged breaches in its co-financing agreement with its distributor New Line Cinema and City National Bank, “Horizon” bondholder, according to the Hollywood Reporter.
In June 2024, “Chapter 1” of the planned four-part series was released in theaters followed by a streaming broadcast on HBO Max, but it was largely panned by critics.
In its review, The Times described “Horizon” as “a massive boondoggle, a misguided and excruciatingly tedious cinematic experience.”
It failed at the box office, grossing just $38.8 million worldwide, on a reported $100 million budget.
“Chapter 2” premiered at the Venice International Film Festival last September, but its theatrical release was pulled and remains indefinitely delayed, while the final two chapters remain in production or development, according to IMDb.
As a child, Clara Spars, who grew up in Charles M. Schulz’s adoptive hometown of Santa Rosa, assumed that every city had life-size “Peanuts” statues dotting its streets.
After all, Spars saw the sculptures everywhere she went — in the Santa Rosa Plaza, at Montgomery Village, outside downtown’s Empire Cleaners. When she and her family inevitably left town and didn’t stumble upon Charlie Brown and his motley crew, she was perplexed.
Whatever void she felt then is long gone, since the beagle has become a pop culture darling, adorning all manner of merchandise — from pimple patches to luxury handbags. Spars herself is the proud owner of a Baggu x Peanuts earbuds case and is regularly gifted Snoopy apparel and accessories.
“It’s so funny to see him everywhere because I’m like, ‘Oh, finally!’” Spars said.
The spike in Snoopy products has been especially pronounced this year with the 75th anniversary of “Peanuts,” a.k.a. Snoopy’s 75th birthday. But the grip Snoopy currently has on pop culture and the retail industry runs deeper than anniversary buzz. According to Sony, which last week acquired majority ownership of the “Peanuts” franchise, the IP is worth half a billion dollars.
To be clear, Snoopy has always been popular. Despite his owner being the “Peanuts” strip’s main character and the namesake for most of the franchise’s adaptations, Snoopy was inarguably its breakout star. He was the winner of a 2001 New York Times poll about readers’ favorite “Peanuts” characters, with 35% of the vote.
This year, the Charles M. Schulz Museum celebrated the 75th anniversary of the “Peanuts” comic strip’s debut.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
But the veritable Snoopymania possessing today’s consumers really exploded with the social media boom of the early 2010s, said Melissa Menta, senior vice president of global brand and communications for Peanuts Worldwide.
That’s also when the company saw the first signs of uncharacteristically high brand engagement, Menta said. She largely attributed the success of “Peanuts” on social media to the comic strip’s suitability to visual platforms like Instagram.
“No one reads the comic strips in newspapers anymore,” Menta said, “but if you think about it, a four-panel comic strip, it’s actually an Instagram carousel.”
Then, in 2023, Peanuts Worldwide launched the campaign that made Snoopy truly viral.
That year, the brand partnered with the American Red Cross to create a graphic tee as a gift for blood donors. The shirt, which featured Snoopy’s alter ego Joe Cool and the message “Be Cool. Give Blood,” unexpectedly became internet-famous. In the first week of the collaboration, the Red Cross saw a 40% increase in donation appointments, with 75% of donors under the age of 34.
“People went crazy over it,” Menta said, and journalists started asking her, “Why?”
Her answer? “Snoopy is cute and cool. He’s everything you want to be.”
“Charles Schulz said the only goal he had in all that he created was to make people laugh, and I think he’s still doing that 75 years later,” Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger said.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
The Red Cross collaboration was so popular that Peanuts Worldwide brought it back this year, releasing four new shirt designs. Again, the Snoopy fandom — plus some Woodstock enthusiasts — responded, with 250,000 blood donation appointments made nationwide in the month after the collection’s launch.
In addition to the Red Cross partnership, Peanuts Worldwide this year has rolled out collaborations with all kinds of retailers, from luxury brands like Coach and Kith to mass-market powerhouses like Krispy Kreme and Starbucks. Menta said licensed product volume is greater than ever, estimating that the brand currently has more than 1,200 licensees in “almost every territory around the world,” which is approximately four times the number it had 40 years ago.
Then again, at that time, Schulz enjoyed and regularly executed veto power when it came to product proposals, and licensing rules were laid out in what former Times staff writer Carla Lazzareschi called the “Bible.”
“The five-pound, 12-inch-by-18-inch binder given every new licensee establishes accepted poses for each character and painstakingly details their personalities,” Lazzareschi wrote in a 1987 Times story. “Snoopy, for example, is said to be an ‘extrovert beagle with a Walter Mitty complex.’ The guidelines cover even such matters as Snoopy’s grip on a tennis racquet.”
Although licensing has expanded greatly since then, Menta said she and her retail development associates “try hard not to just slap a character onto a T-shirt.” Their goal is to honor Schulz’s storytelling, she added, and with 18,000 “Peanuts” strips in the archive, licensees have plenty of material to pull from.
Rick Vargas, the senior vice president of merchandising and marketing at specialty retailer BoxLunch, said his team regularly returns to the Schulz archives to mine material that could resonate with customers.
“As long as you have a fresh look at what that IP has to offer, there’s always something to find. There’s always a new product to build,” Vargas said.
Indeed, this has been one of BoxLunch’s strongest years in terms of sales of “Peanuts” products, and Snoopy merchandise specifically, the executive said.
BaubleBar co-founder Daniella Yacobovsky said the brand’s “Peanuts” collaboration was one of its most beloved yet.
(BaubleBar)
Daniella Yacobovsky, co-founder of the celebrity-favorite accessory retailer BaubleBar, reported similar high sales for the brand’s recent “Peanuts” collection.
“Especially for people who are consistent BaubleBar fans, every time we introduce new character IP, there is this huge excitement from that fandom that we are bringing their favorite characters to life,” Yacobovsky said.
The bestselling item in the collection, the Peanuts Friends Forever Charm Bracelet, sold out in one day. Plus, customers have reached out with new ideas for products linked to specific “Peanuts” storylines.
More recently, Peanuts Worldwide has focused on marketing to younger costumers in response to unprecedented brand engagement from Gen Z. In November, it launched a collaboration with Starface, whose cult-favorite pimple patches are a staple for teens and young adults. The Snoopy stickers have already sold out on Ulta.com, Starface founder Julie Schott said in an emailed statement, adding that the brand is fielding requests for restocks.
“We know it’s a certified hit when resale on Depop and EBay starts to spike,” Schott said.
The same thing happened in 2023, when a CVS plush of Snoopy in a puffer jacket (possibly the dog’s most internet-famous iteration to date) sold out in-store and started cropping up on EBay — for more than triple the original price.
The culprits were Gen-Zers fawning over how cute cozy Snoopy was, often on social media.
“People who love Snoopy adore Snoopy, whether you grew up with ‘Peanuts’ or connect with Snoopy as a meme and cultural icon today,” said Starface founder Julie Schott.
(Starface World Inc.)
Hannah Guy Casey, senior director of brand and marketing at Peanuts Worldwide, said in 2024, the official Snoopy TikTok account gained 1.1 million followers, and attracted 85.4 million video views and 17.6 million engagements. This year, the account has gained another 1.2 million followers, and racked up 106.5 million video views and 23.2 million engagements.
Guy Casey noted that TikTok is where the brand experiences much of its engagement among Gen Z fans.
Indeed, the platform is a hot spot for fan-created Snoopy content, from memes featuring the puffer jacket to compilations of his most relatable moments. Several Snoopy fan accounts, including one dedicated to a music-loving Snoopy plushie, boast well over half a million followers.
Caryn Iwakiri, a speech and language pathologist at Sunnyvale’s Lakewood Tech EQ Elementary School whose classroom is Snoopy-themed, recently took an impromptu trip to the Charles M. Schulz Museum in Santa Rosa after seeing its welcome center decked out with Snoopy decor on TikTok. Once she arrived, she realized the museum was celebrating the “Peanuts” 75th anniversary.
Last year, the Schulz Museum saw its highest-ever attendance, driven in large part by its increased visibility on social media.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
It’s a familiar story for Schulz Museum director Gina Huntsinger.
“Last December, we were packed, and I was at the front talking to people, and I just randomly asked this group, ‘Why are you here?’”
It turned out that the friends had traveled from Washington, D.C., and Las Vegas to meet in Santa Rosa and visit the museum after seeing it on TikTok.
According to Stephanie King, marketing director at the Schulz Museum, the establishment is experiencing its highest-ever admissions since opening in 2002. In the 2024–2025 season, the museum increased its attendance by nearly 45% from the previous year.
Huntsinger said she’s enjoyed watching young visitors experience the museum in new ways.
In the museum’s education room, where visitors typically trace characters from the original Schulz comics or fill out “Peanuts” coloring pages, Gen Z museumgoers are sketching pop culture renditions of Snoopy — Snoopy as rock band Pierce the Veil, Snoopy as pop star Charli XCX.
“When our social media team puts them up [online], there’s these comments among this generation that gets this, and they’re having conversations about it,” Huntsinger said. “It’s dynamic, it’s fun, it’s creative. It makes me feel like there’s hope in the world.”
The Schulz Museum’s “Passport to Peanuts” exhibition emphasizes the comic’s global reach.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
Laurel Roxas felt similarly when they first discovered “Peanuts” as a kid while playing the “Snoopy vs. the Red Baron” video game on their PlayStation Portable. For Roxas, who is Filipino, it was Snoopy and not the “Peanuts” children who resonated most.
“Nobody was Asian. I was like, ‘Oh, I’m not even in the story,’” they said.
Because Snoopy was so simply drawn, Roxas added, he was easy to project onto. They felt similarly about Hello Kitty; with little identifying features or dialogue of their own, the characters were blank canvases for their own personification.
Roxas visited Snoopy Museum Tokyo with their brother last year. They purchased so much Snoopy merchandise — “everything I could get my hands on” — that they had to buy additional luggage to bring it home.
For some Snoopy enthusiasts, the high volume of Snoopy products borders on oversaturation, threatening to cheapen the spirit of the character.
Growing up, Bella Shingledecker loved the holiday season because it meant that the “Peanuts” animated specials would be back on the air. It was that sense of impermanence, she believes, that made the films special.
Now, when she sees stacks of Snoopy cookie jars or other trend-driven products at big-box stores like T.J. Maxx, it strikes her as a bit sad.
“It just feels very unwanted,” she said. For those who buy such objects, she said she can’t help but wonder, “Will this pass your aesthetic test next year?”
Lina Jeong, for one, isn’t worried that Snoopy’s star will fade.
“[Snoopy is] always able to show what he feels, but it’s never through words, and I think there’s something really poetic in that,” said Lina Jeong.
(Brennan Spark / Charles M. Schulz Museum)
Jeong’s affinity for the whimsical beagle was passed down to her from her parents, who furnished their home with commemorative “Peanuts” coffee table books. But she fell in love with Snoopy the first time she saw “Be My Valentine, Charlie Brown,” which she rewatches every Valentine’s Day.
This past year, she was fresh out of a relationship when the holiday rolled around and she found herself tearing up during scenes of Snoopy making Valentine’s crafts for his friends.
“Maybe I was hyper-emotional from everything that had happened, but I remember being so struck,” that the special celebrated platonic love over romantic love, Jeong said.
It was a great comfort to her at the time, she said, and she knows many others have felt that same solace from “Peanuts” media — especially from its dear dog.
“Snoopy is such a cultural pillar that I feel like fads can’t just wash it off,” she said.
Soon, she added, she plans to move those “Peanuts” coffee table books into her own apartment in L.A.
Bruins Close Homestand with 6-2 Loss to Canadiens | Boston Bruins
16th Street sees more foot traffic just in time for last minute holiday shopping
Hannah Murphy makes 37 saves as Seattle Torrent beat Victoire 2-1
Sex trafficking sting in San Diego County leads to 10 arrests, 19 victims found
16 music and theater performances to see in Milwaukee in January 2026
Florida High School Football Rankings: Top 25 teams – Oct. 21
Cleary's 21 help Le Moyne down Central Connecticut State 69-64 in OT
How old is Bo Nix? What to know about Oregon quarterback ahead of 2024 NFL Draft
99th annual Pony Swim held in Virginia
Video: ‘It Didn’t Have to Happen This Way:’ U.Va. Faculty Call for Review of Police Response to Protests
A 3-D Look Inside Trump’s Revamped Oval Office
Trump admin sues Illinois Gov. Pritzker over laws shielding migrants from courthouse arrests
Europeans show solidarity with Denmark after Trump’s Greenland threat
Explosion at a Pennsylvania nursing home kills at least 2, governor says
What does Christmas look like for Ukraine? | Global News Podcast
-
Iowa1 week agoAddy Brown motivated to step up in Audi Crooks’ absence vs. UNI
-
Maine1 week agoElementary-aged student killed in school bus crash in southern Maine
-
Maryland1 week agoFrigid temperatures to start the week in Maryland
-
New Mexico1 week agoFamily clarifies why they believe missing New Mexico man is dead
-
South Dakota1 week agoNature: Snow in South Dakota
-
Detroit, MI1 week ago‘Love being a pedo’: Metro Detroit doctor, attorney, therapist accused in web of child porn chats
-
Health1 week ago‘Aggressive’ new flu variant sweeps globe as doctors warn of severe symptoms
-
Maine1 week agoFamily in Maine host food pantry for deer | Hand Off