Around the end of 2013, everyone found out that one of Shia LaBeouf‘s short films was actually pretty much lifted part and parcel from a Daniel Clowes graphic novel. There are one of two explanations for it: Either he stole the entire thing because he figured he could get away with it, or he’s trying to do some sort of performance art piece about how stealing is the new creativity. Although if we plotted this out on a Venn diagram, the sliver between these two competing ideas would be that Shia is an idiot manchild permanently lodged up his own ass after a decade of ruining Transformers and Indiana Jones. Anyway, yesterday he was served a cease and desist order from Clowes’ lawyers, so I guess that means no more of his smug plagiarism. Oh no, I’m crushed.
https://twitter.com/thecampaignbook/status/420931894935834624
https://twitter.com/thecampaignbook/status/420931951462477824
https://twitter.com/thecampaignbook/status/420931993946558464
Gawd, I hope Shia runs with scissors. Anyway, now Shia’s Twitter bio just reads #stopcreating, because he’s all sad now that he can’t just rip people off and call it art. Except here’s the thing: He never created anything to begin with. He just copied it. For example, I created this paragraph and the opening paragraph because I just sat down at a keyboard and mashed at it with my little baby hands until it turned into thoughts and words and stuff. I didn’t create those tweets; I copied them and shared them with others and gave proper credit to Shia, but I DID NOT CREATE THEM. If that’s your idea of creation, then guess what? You’re a bad artist and you make bad art.