Shia LaBeouf's Plagiarism Performance Art Explanation Decoded
Gotcha! He's been pretending the whole time, he says.
Jan. 22, 2014 — -- Shia LaBeouf says his final act of plagiarism was ripping off Joaquin Phoenix.
The "Transformers" star, 27, came clean after weeks of weird behavior and tweeted that all his plagiarism and public apologies have been one long piece of performance art for a project called #stopcreating, a hashtag he used on many of his recent tweets.
News broke in December that the actor had plagiarized graphic novel writer Daniel Clowes, for his short film, "HowardCantour.com." He lifted whole passages from Clowes' story "Justin M. Damiano" and failed to credit the writer. That's when LaBeouf said his "real" art began with everything that followed.
The explanation tweets were reportedly deleted shortly after the actor posted them, reports The Wrap and Time.
Stop Creating, LeBeouf said, was done in collaboration with Luke Turner, David Ayer, the screenwriter for "End of Watch," and Kenneth Goldsmith.
Joaquin Phoenix did something similar in 2009 when he pretended to quit acting for a documentary, "I'm Still Here." Basically, LaBeouf believes that all art today, especially on social media, is plagiarism and the only true art is in the moment of reaction.
Here's a quick breakdown of LaBeouf's #stopcreating. The young actor uses some pretty convoluted language in his explanation, so we broke it down for you, so you don't have to. Enjoy!
1 - "Look at someone's tumblr page - How many original images do you see?"
Translation: LaBeouf says we are becoming a "cut and paste" culture and that most of social media is rife with plagiarism. Basically, your Facebook page is a copy of a copy, of a copy, of a copy ...
2 - "Performance art has been a way of appealing directly to a large public, as well as shocking audiences into reassessing their own notions of art"
Translation: Quoting Maya Angelou in your Twitter feed does not make you a poet. Now, quoting Justin Bieber is a totally different story.
3 - "All art is either plagiarism or revolution & to be revolutionary in art today, is to be reactionary."
Translation: Shia LaBeouf and Kanye West are the only true artists!
4 - "In the midst of being embroiled in acts of intended plagiarism, the world caught me & I reacted. The show began."
Translation: This was all planned and I know what embroiled means, do you?
5 - "My use of Twitter started a broad cultural discussion that needs to be had about plagiarism in the digital age & celebrity/social media absurdity."
Translation: Kim Kardashian, please stop posting selfies.
Bonus - "Thank you, I'm sorry - shia"
Translation: Thank you, Booyah!, who's the man now?! What's up Megatron! - shia.