blank is the new blank

I keep hearing that brown is the new black.  And that  pink is the new blog.  Which led me to the question of just how many pages on the web have the phrase "<blank> is the new <blank>" in their title.  Answer?  About 100,000.  Here are the top twenty "<blank> is the new <blank> results, removing the titles that don't really match the pattern...

1. Blood is the new black.
2. Innovation is the new black.
3. Yellow is the new black.
4. Fat is the new black.
5. Sincerity is the new irony.
6. Caring is the new competitive advantage.
7. Green is the new black.
8. Gamma is the new beta.
9. Secrecy is the new black.
10. Folksonomy is the new black.
11. Disk is the new tape.
12. Blogging is the new black.
13. R&B is the new hip-hop.
14. Bitter is the new black.
15. Gay is the new black.
16. XML is the new black.
17. Transformation is the new black.
18. White is the new black.
19. Random is the new black.
20. Teen is the new noir.

The pattern "<blank> is the new black" accounts for more than half of the top twenty!  And if you're curious, check out the Google Trend line for "is the new" -- it shows a slight trend upward in the past couple of years, and you can check out the top news stories on the term, like the Massachusetts Daily Collegian story titled "Vengeance is the new Justice," which somehow fittingly, 404s. 

Comments

[jima]

Data mining is the new blogging.

[Mathew Patterson]

Similarly, I've noticed that a lot of things are the height of ignorance.

[Robb Beal]

From a Good Morning America piece about NY Fashion Week comes the deeply recursive...

"Color is the new black."