The new black
From Biocrawler, the free encyclopedia.
"_____ is the new black" is a meme used to indicate the sudden popularity of an idea at the expense of the popularity of a second idea.
The original uses of the phrase were simply mean to indicate that other colors (frequently brown or grey were temporarly displacing the position of black in fashion or industrial design. However, the phrase is now used in a great variety of contexts.
The trend was illustrated in the movie Josie and the Pussycats, with the use of the phrases "Pink is the new red", "Orange is the new pink" and "Heath Ledger is the new Matt Damon."
For another example, "big is the new small" was referenced in a 2001 episode of Saturday Night Live. It played off the phrase "small is the new big," indicating that small electronics were more expensive and modern than larger electronics, and therefore the smaller your cell phone the better. However, that phrase was cast in opposition to the still-earlier conception that big was better.
The tagline for the 2004 film Ocean's Twelve, the sequel to Ocean's Eleven, was "Twelve is the new eleven."
Because the phrase is so familar, it is now frequently used in absurd contexts as a signifier. For example, in the New York Times of May 23, 2005, the reporter Stuartt Eliott stated that "So in a trend-conscious industry, economizing is the new black." The phrase was not used in quotation marks or in an ironic context, and the metaphor is incomprehensible without a familarity of the history of the phrase.
External links
- List of things that are the new black (http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2004/02/17/black)
- SNL sketch with 'big is the new small' (http://snltranscripts.jt.org/01/01bjeffreys.phtml)
- New York Times article (http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/23/business/media/23adco.html?8dpc)
- Boing boing claming that 'beta is the new black' (http://www.boingboing.net/2005/04/05/mtv_launches_overdri.html)
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