[rrgmitchell]

Second sentence contains one of my pet bugbears, 'epicenter' instead of, well, 'center'. If Capote really was at the epicenter of his social circle, then the social circle itself must have been many kilometres below him. Do people think that an epicenter is somehow much more of a center than the center is?

[contravariant]

The word epicentre has the obvious connotation of being the central point of some kind of quake, the point from which all waves originate.

The word centre does not.

[robbedpeter]

It's a literary device called allusion. Using "epicenter" in the context of a normally non-seismic thing alludes to a seismic aspect not normally associated with that thing. It falls in line with other earthquake flavored language used for people, like "movers and shakers."

[atombender]

The New Oxford American Dictionary also defines epicenter as:

    the central point of something, typically a difficult
    or unpleasant situation: the patient was at the
    epicenter of concern.

[dylan604]

not sure what your definition of epicenter is, but the definition i know says it is the point on the earth's surface directly above the focus of the earthquake. so a human could easily be the epicenter since they are primarly found on the surface.

[rrgmitchell]

An (unfortunate) human could be at the epicenter of an earthquake. But not at the epicenter of a social circle unless that (unfortunate) social circle was deep below the surface of the earth.

[abakker]

Also: who isn't at the center of their social circle?

[JohnJamesRambo]

George, Elaine, and Kramer.

[codetrotter]

I'm not. The vast majority of people in my social circle has someone more important to them than I am to them. And I think this is true for most people.

[busyant]

Strangely, this is one of my pet peeves, too. Especially with regard to COVID.

I've read many articles declaring that NYC was an "epicenter" of the COVID outbreak in spring of 2020, when "center" seems simpler and more appropriate.

Honestly, it's not a big deal, but I feel like those two syllables ("epi") are added to "center" without much thought and perhaps with some vague feeling that they give some high-tech oomph to the word "center."

edit: for earthquakes "epicenter" makes sense. For the distribution of an infectious agent, less so.