A recent study conducted by the Committee of People Who Hate Douchebag Film Majors (But Not All Film Majors, Just the Douchebag Ones) revealed that the committee needs to change its name. It’s too long.
That same study also revealed an even more revealing revelation: a whopping 99% of film majors use the term “meta” at least three times a day, yet only 0.72% knows what the term actually means.
Sample definitions provided by those surveyed included, “mind-blowing,” “totally profound,” “if you have to ask then you’ll never know,” and, “you can’t define “meta,’ it just is.” (Note: surveyors were unsure of how to dictate the scornful snickers with which most of the students responded.)
Some 30% of students simply repeated the term “meta” as the definition for the term.
Despite this seemingly inconceivable knowledge gap, professors and students in film departments across the country are not owning up to any fault.
“To teach a student what “meta’ means,” explained Professor Robert Simpson of NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts’ film program, “is so meta in itself that the student’s mind would instantly blow with how totally profound the lesson itself is.”
Added Simpson, “Besides, if you have to ask what it means then you’ll never really know.”
Dale Ellis, a film major at UCLA, said that the whole situation is “so meta that to even call it meta is meta-meta, even bordering on reality.” He then nodded at how “totally profound” his statement was and proceeded to shoot a 200-minute film about foliage.
