Shia Can't Win Internet, Just Gives Up
Shia LaBeouf has announced he's done with social media.
After it was exposed that he plagiarized well-known graphic novelist Daniel Clowes — as well his subsequent apology — the "Transformers" star has had enough from online critics. In a string of tweets posted on Friday, he claimed that tweets and hashtags are a thing of the past.
On Dec. 16, it was revealed that LaBeouf's 12-minute short film "HowardCantour.com" starring funnyman Jim Gaffigan was largely lifted from the graphic novelist's 2007 comic book "Justin M. Damiano." When he apologized, he "borrowed" the words from a response to a Yahoo Answers question posted four years earlier — thus putting the sincerity of his apology in question. (Last year, he also plagiarized an apology to Alec Baldwin from Esquire's 2009 "How to Be a Man" issue.)
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Things became even stranger after that. Not only did he hire a skywriting company to post a message over Los Angeles, which read, "I am sorry Daniel Clowes," but he started to tweet countless apologies. However, those words were also lifted from other celebrities, including Lena Dunham, Kanye West, Russell Crowe, and Eliot Spitzer.
LaBeouf was widely mocked, especially on Twitter, for his actions. Fellow celebrities even bashed him with Seth Rogen writing, "This is by far the most I've been entertained by Shia LaBeouf." And Patton Oswalt quipping, "Not easy to pull off crazy AND moronic, but you did it, Shia LaBeouf."
He even had an exchange with Dunham after she wrote, "I've always felt, utterly and unchangeably, that only sociopaths hire skywriters."
And earlier this week, LaBeouf further infuriated Clowes, who is reportedly considering suing the Hollywood star, by posting what he said was the storyboard for his next short film called "Daniel Boring." However, "Daniel Boring" is another graphic novel belonging to Clowes — and the images LaBeouf posted were lifted from it as well.
No surprise, LaBeouf was hit with a cease and desist letter from Clowes's attorney, which the star then head-scratchingly posted on Twitter.
Those were his final tweets leading up to his "retirement" announcement, which certainly seems like it's for the best. Shia and hashtags apparently don't mix.