Journalists have used this (false)claim to imply that cultural group X has reason to spend a great deal of time thinking about the specific idea Z. This served as the first example and the idea behind the name of the trope or a type of phrasal template in which certain words may be replaced with another to produce new variations with altered meanings, similar to the “fill-in-the-blank” game of Mad Libs.
Examples:
X is the new Y
The only good X is a dead X
To X or not to X?
X is my middle name We’re gonna need a bigger X
X, X Everywhere
I, for one, welcome our new X Overlords
Bitches Love X
One Does Not Simply Walk into X
Keep X and Y On
X’ers Gonna X
A Wild X Appears!
In Soviet Russia, X Ys You
What was the claim and the trope?