"In cultural practice this process of minimal change takes two primary forms. First, we create stories and metaphors that map strange new experiences back to something we already understand."

This is quite common in creative fields as quick shorthand for a new concept. For example, in filmmaking you might introduce a new crime thriller as script as "It's like Michael Mann's Heat but set in the high finance world of *Wall Street."

Probably true for a lot of innovation programs. "It's like Reddit but for hackers"