An experience difficult to describe

[vvvexation]

I just asked my dad the following question over email:

Is there a name for the phenomenon whereby a pale imitation of some
experience is better known than the experience itself, and becomes
almost more of a prototype than the prototype is? But without people
forgetting that it is just an imitation, so that when they for once in
their lives have the prototypical experience, they think "wow, this
feels like [prototype X]" just as they always do when they're having
the derivative experience, and forget for a moment that this time it
actually is the prototype they're experiencing?

He evidently isn't quite sure what I mean and wants a specific example. However, I'm not sure I want to share with him the example I was thinking of.

Anybody have any parent-safe examples of this kind of thing?

Comments

[deyo.livejournal.com]

At the end of The Passion of the Christ:

"Oh, so he's like Neo!"

[secretagentmoof]

Red ("cherry") flavor.

[catamorphism.livejournal.com]

The postcard effect? (Seeing something beautiful in nature firsthand, and saying, "oh, this looks like a postcard.")

[enleve.livejournal.com]

Here's an example: some popular music tunes are based on classical music, and someone encountering the original for the first time might think "Hey, this is just like that song." Or they might encounter the classical music in a different context than they first heard it, and think "Hey, this sounds just like Looney Tunes."

For specific examples of songs like this, Wikipedia has a list: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_popular_songs_based_on_classical_music and I'm sure there are more.

[tshuma]

"You know the thing I hate about Tolkien is that he's so bloody derivative. Elves, halflings, wizards and the like are great, but they've been done to death already. Give it up!"
-- actual recent commentary from someone who had not a clue in the world

Or perhaps using a cross country ski machine at the gym, versus actually skiing the trails at a national park?

[marmaladious.livejournal.com]

Well, if you gave me the nc-17 version, I may be able to come up with an example.

[zwol.livejournal.com]

I think I read this in a Calvin Trillin book. The narrator was the sports-page editor of a newspaper somewhere -- I want to say it was the Chicago Tribune, but I'm not at all confident of that. They had a guy who'd been reporting baseball games for over fifty years, and his articles were dripping with baseball-game-reporting cliches. The narrator asked him to stop using so many cliches. The reporter said, son, they are my cliches.

Not quite the same thing, but pretty close...?

[flwyd.livejournal.com]

Young Fred: You could pass for the originals!
Paul: We are the originals.
-- Yellow Submarine

"I'm like a chocoholic, but with alcohol." -- popular joke

I thought of an answer!

[haggis-bagpipes.livejournal.com]

No, there very likely isn't a word for it. Invent one, and start using it.

[januslazarus.livejournal.com]

"deer in the headlights" response triggered by the sight of an imminently incoming Peterbilt?

Great, now I am curious what it was. (I take it you're not going there, though.)