X is the Y of Z

“X is the Y of Z” is a snowclone–an adaptable, Mad Libs-like idiom like “May I compare thee to an X?”, “X is the new Y,” and “I for one welcome our new X overlords.” This snowclone touches on every subject imaginable, including music. So without further adieu, today’s topic is…

Britney Spears

In her time, Britney Spears has had—as Homer Simpson put it—more than her share of “the terrifying lows, the dizzying highs, the creamy middles”. But she has never been off the radar, and her name is a handy reference point for planet-watchers, meerkat mavens, and everyone in between:

Venus fly traps are native to a very small swath of North Carolina – and that’s it.  One little patch of earth.  They’re now endangered because of their popularity – kind of like the Britney Spears of plants.  And they are pretty cool – they eat insects because the soil in which they live is pretty low in nutrients.  Sensitive trigger hairs on the inside of the fly trap (really a modified leaf) are set off by an insect wandering across them, trapping the insect.”

(Jan. 25, 2009, FYI: Science!)

“The Tracker’s head is spinning like a hot jupiter cooked with too many plasmatically searing eruptions of confusing and somewhat repetitive news. One thing is sure: for a place without a common name a world called HD 189733b has gotten a lot of attention the last two days. It’s the Britney Spears of planets – in the news with or without much new to say. We read of it about two weeks ago. And before that, about a year ago. (OK, starlets and other young, pretty, and unpredictable entertainment stars get more ink than this real star). All this due to the gases – CO2 and H2O -  in its atmosphere as revealed in spectra that the NASA space telescopes Hubble and Spitzer have gathered. The science here is wonderful – I just don’t understand the news flow.”

(Dec. 11, 2008, Knight Science Journalism Tracker)

“Why the obsession with responding to Michael Moore? Why would one build a putatively serious analysis of a presumed serious issue around the sputtering of the Britney Spears of film documentarians? In brief, who really cares what Michael Moore thinks—about anything?”

(Dec. 6, 2008, AlterNet)

“I’ve generally thought, that when it comes to things like food, the makers should make what they think is best, not go by feedback. By dictating to feedback, they are simply producing the chocolate the appears to the most wide range of people. It’s like the Britney Spears of chocolate. It’s also like saying that they don’t know what they’re doing, and why would I want to pay so much for chocolate from people who don’t know what they’re doing?”

(Dec. 4, 2008, Boing Boing)

“Amtrak is the Britney Spears of the federal government. It wants everyone to love it and give it money, but it continues to do impossibly reckless things and ignore any helping hand that is offered to it.”

(Nov. 15, 2008, Transit in Utah)

“In his cuddlier days, Knut graced the cover of Vanity Fair, starred in films, inspired pop songs, and was honored on a postage stamp. (He’s even been accused of being a diva and has been called the Britney Spears of zoo animals.) But boy have times changed. Along with the stock market (and Britney), Knut’s stardom has taken a nosedive. Nowadays, he is often cranky and only rouses from his naps to eat. Knut was once an icon of the environmental movement, but some say his transfer to a new zoo may be funded by Gazprom, the Russian energy giant.”

(Dec. 2, 2008, Discover)

“perhaps I could entice you to try leeks? Which appeared in my CSA box this week! They are the Miley Cyrus of onions…as opposed to the Britney Spears of onions…”

(May 8, 2008, Adventures at the Orange Door Inn)

“I’m sorry – and anyone who knows me knows that I love all animals – and that I am a HUGE fan of the SD Zoo and WAP – but gosh… these meerkats seem like a pretty disfunctional family if you ask me. And pardon the expression – but Ngami sounds a bit like the ‘Britney Spears’ of meerkat moms – not very responsible. So maybe she shouldn’t be allowed to have anymore pups? I just hate hearing about the injured babies – it really made me sad reading the last few blogs about them. I do love visiting them – and they are awfully adorable, but … I’m just not sure what to think about the situation.”

(March 4, 2008, San Diego Zoo Blog)

“While being a US citizen in the US is not very glamorous, being a US citizen in many other countries is. And by glamour I mean that everyone has an opinion of you. We’re the Britney Spears of geopolitics (note this may be the first time that ‘Britney Spears’ and ‘geopolitics’ have appeared in the same sentence). We should do more to combat global warming. We should pull our troops from Iraq. We should stop sluttin’ around at all the big night clubs and go home to K-fed’s kids.”

(Jan. 24, 2007, Kelsey Timmerman, Touron Talk)

Mark Peters is a language columnist and humorist who writes for Good, Visual Thesaurus and other mags, while maintaining too many blogs, including Wordlustitude, The Rosa Parks of Blogs, and The Pancake Proverbs.

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