Dude's Just Messing With Us Now

Shia LaBeouf's in some hot water these days. You might have heard that he totally plagiarized his short film from Ghost World author Daniel Clowes — and that he then proceeded to plagiarize his apology for plagiarizing Daniel Clowes. Today, he continues to be in the news because Shia LaBeouf keeps plagiarizing apologies. He just keeps going, like the Little Engine That Could or the, you know, Douchey Energizer Bunny.

Everything that's happened in Shialand these past few days does beg the question: What's going on here? At the beginning of the spread of this story there seemed to be a consensus that LaBeouf's actions were a result of some sort of dopiness, or dumbness, or more, likely, some sort of self-centered ego issue.

Now, as the story progresses (AKA as LaBeouf keeps tweeting other people's apologies), something else is coming to light: Shia LaBeouf is definitely making fun of you. You, and me, and probably everyone, actually.

So there it is: Is LaBeouf clueless, or just a jerk? Let's look at the evidence.

Clueless

• He plagiarized Daniel Clowes and seemed to just have no idea that he should, I don't know, credit the dude from whom he'd taken all that dialogue and story. Pretty big oversight, dude.
• That first apology on Tuesday was plagiarized from, I kid you not, Yahoo Answers . Because everyone knows Yahoo Answers is our society's greatest source of wisdom.

A Jerk

• Was his original apology meant as a joke? That's anyone's guess.
• But all the rest of them, in which he uses the words of none other than Tiger Woods, Robert McNamara (apologizing for the Vietnam War), and Kanye West? Dude's just trolling now.

Kind of makes you wish we could go back to the days of Even Stevens.

I'd venture to guess that this is all going to turn into some sort of performance art piece in which his plagiarized apologies are meant to be a statement about acting, or movies, or media, or whatever. But one thing's for sure: there's no question that LaBeuof is being a total asshole. Whether he's plagiarizing because he's not smart enough to know better or because he thinks it's some sort of smart-ass statement after he was first caught ripping off someone's work, there's no winning here.