Sometimes a metaphor grows legs and runs away. A particular form of drug, for instance, is now eponymous for any extraordinarily dangerous addictive object or activity:

• video slot machines: "the crack cocaine of gambling"
• Internet porn: "the crack cocaine of sexual addiction"
• suicide bombing: "the crack cocaine of warfare"

and so forth. The phrase also appears in important but somewhat less serious contexts:

• spam: "the crack cocaine of modern advertising"
• anonymous sources: "the crack cocaine of journalism"
• reality shows: "the crack cocaine of television programming"
• computer law databases: "the crack cocaine of legal research"
• vehicle license fee revenues: "the crack cocaine of local governments"

etc. That, in turn, empowers the same metaphor to spread to humorous usage with a serious edge:

• Krispy Kreme donuts: "the crack cocaine of junk food"
• blog statistics: "the crack cocaine of the Internet"
• Blackberry pagers: "the crack cocaine of email"
• unnatural reverberation: "the crack cocaine of the recording world"
• Carmex: "the crack cocaine of lip balm"
• Wikipedia: "the crack cocaine of copy editing"
• white bread, peanut butter, and mashed banana: "the crack cocaine of sandwiches"

And, in our own household, Pocky: "the crack cocaine of candy" ...

(cf. AddictiveTrope (25 May 2006), ...)

TopicLanguage - TopicHumor - 2004-05-09

(correlates: AddictiveTrope, ThingsPeopleAndIdeas, HansBethe, ...)