Links are the new blogposts

I enjoyed this diagram showing uses (in 2005) of the device "[blank] is the new [blank]." I'm unconvinced that a diagram was really the best choice for displaying this data given that only a few of the terms, most notably colors, appear in multiple phrases. Still, it provides a wealth of new statements for you to toss off officiously when the subject comes up: "Oh, you didn't know? Cheese is the new morphine."

Also, on a (slightly) more serious note, although the site dismisses them as "peculiarly common," I think these phrases are a good thing. Richard Rorty claimed that metaphor was the language of change--the only way we have of beginning to grasp new concepts that exist outside our language. The "[blank] is the new [blank]" construction is a junior metaphor, forcing readers to break down the definitions we have of both concepts to isolate a thread that could connect them.*

*(no, this doesn't hold for every usage. For instance, I don't think Rorty would have applauded "Nickelback is the new Creed." He was more of a Counting Crows sort of guy.)