With a title like this, I could very well write about the Palin/Beck rally participants that descended on my city this weekend… But instead I’ll stick to the (hopefully) less-polarizing topic of cupcakeries. I’m not entirely sure when the fad of cupcake-focused bakeries began sweeping America. National Geographic says:

The gourmet cupcake trend really took off back in the late ’90s when HBO’s Sex and the City series name-checked New York’s Magnolia Bakery.

But I don’t think the craze began spreading (seriously) to Washington, DC until a few years ago. Hello Cupcake appears to have opened in August 2008, while Red Velvet Cupcakery didn’t open until January 2009. Georgetown Cupcake claims to have opened in February 2008 as “DC’s first and only cupcakery.” Cupcakes Actually located in Fairfax, VA opened in May 2009. And Frosting in Chevy Chase, MD opened sometime in late 2009 or early 2010.

So if the lines of people stretching up the block from Georgetown Cupcake aren’t enough evidence for you, how can you verify the spread of this fad? Well, the Washington Post‘s Going Out Gurus have added a “best cupcake” to their Best Bets guide, and personal blogs have also sprung up on the topic.

DC has no shortage of good (traditional) bakeries — Patisserie Poupon in Georgetown is one of my personal picks. So what makes people shun the old school bakeries in favor of what a type of sweet that has in the past been considered a low-rung “poor man’s” product? One commenter on the DCist blog sums up my thoughts on the matter rather succinctly:

Anyone who is willing to stand in line for a cupcke for the same amount of time it would take to bake a dozen cupcakes deserves to stand in line for a cupcake.

And another notes, “And pay as much for one cupcake as it would cost to make a couple dozen.” Perhaps somewhat less PC, a third commenter adds, “I see about several people in this photo who would be better off jogging around the block a few times rather than standing in line all day for cupcakes.” All in all, waiting as much as an hour in line for a cupcake seems like a waste of time (especially when you can bake a dozen in your own oven for probably about $5). The mark-up on these “designer” bake good is enormous — As DCist again notes, I hope this is one fad that has already jumped the shark.