[ X ] Should Buy [ Y ]

How Pundits Write Slash Fic for Big $$$

“The New York Times Should Buy Bloomberg,” trumpeted my prognostication-prone pal Felix Salmon the other day. It was a provocative salvo, simultaneously sharpened by its tidy headline yet dulled by the ubiquity of its packaging. If you haven’t noticed, the [X] Should Buy [Y] gambit has reached a state of super-saturation in business circles.

Distrust that assertion? Here then, a listicle of evidence, culled from just over the past few month, of pundits recycling that mathematically-elegant sentence structure and transforming the formula into maximum bizness thinkyness:

• “Apple Should Buy DuckDuckGo”
• “Apple Should Buy Netflix”
• “Apple Should Buy Tesla”
• “Apple Should Buy Fitbit”
• “Apple Should Buy Blackberry”
• “Microsoft Should Buy Blackberry”
• “Samsung Should Buy Blackberry”
• “Facebook Should Buy Twitter”
• “Facebook Should Buy LinkedIn”
• “Facebook Should Buy Nokia”
• “Starbucks Should Buy Chobani”
• “Google Should Buy Twitter”
• “Twitter Should Buy Meerkat”