The Advanced Semiotics Symposium by ChatGPT

Scene: The Advanced Semiotics Symposium – A Celebration of Pretend Mastery

The scene opens with a crowd gathered at a prestigious university for the Advanced Semiotics Symposium. The room is filled with professors, students, and enthusiasts, all wearing tweed jackets with elbow patches and glasses perched precariously on their noses.

Banners on the walls read:

*“The Semiotic Revolution Starts Here: Who Needs To Understand When You Can Confuse?”

*“Theory Is Not To Be Understood, It’s To Be Displayed”

Emcee (with pompous gravitas, addressing the crowd):

Good evening, colleagues, scholars, and aspiring philosophers of the semiotic realm. Tonight, we gather not to discuss the actual works we’ve read or to debate concepts we’ve grasped, but to celebrate the impression of scholarship, the display of ideas, the performance of mastery! Who among us has truly understood the theory? Ah, that is not the point! What matters is how convincingly we use it to sound like we have. Let us begin the awards!

Cut to the first winner:

A professor in his 50s, Professor Derrishmoore, steps up to the podium. His speech is absolutely teeming with terms like “intertextuality,” “social semiotics,” and “the dialectic of language and power.”

Professor Derrishmoore (with exaggerated pride):

I stand before you tonight, having successfully recontextualized the works of Halliday and Barthes into a critique of the neoliberal postmodern discourse. Through my careful triangulation of semiotic materialism and the ontological hegemony of textual dynamics, I have concluded—nay, I have manifested—that the meaning of a sign is not merely about the signified, but about its postmodern echo in the surveillance of capitalist aesthetics. Thank you.

The audience erupts in applause, nodding fervently as if they understood everything.

Narrator (voiceover, dripping with irony):

Ah, yes, Derrishmoore’s breakthrough: taking a few buzzwords, jumbling them together, and coming up with nothing. But in the world of academic performativity, it’s all about confidence—and making sure your jargon-heavy conclusion sounds like it could have been important.

Cut to the next award:

A young doctoral student, Fiona, in a vintage blazer with a “semiotics for the people” pin, receives an award for her “groundbreaking work” titled “The Deconstruction of Guilt in Post-Industrial Imagery.”

Fiona (faking humility while looking at her phone):

Thank you, thank you! I’ve been deeply moved by the conversations happening in this very room. I’m especially proud of how my paper engages with subverting hegemonic discourse through the semiotic examination of cereal boxes. Specifically, how Cheerios represents the neoliberal agenda through its circular, repetitive symbol of infinity, which mirrors the late capitalist cycle of consumption. Of course, I’m not here to claim that I’ve truly read any material on this—who could, right?—but I’ve definitely “felt” the significance. Thank you.

Audience (enthusiastically clapping, then quickly texting their friends about the “groundbreaking” work):

#CerealBoxRevolution #NeoliberalSymbols

Narrator (voiceover, with biting commentary):

And there it is. The hallmark of modern intellectualism: reinterpreting everything—even breakfast foods—while doing little to actually engage with the material. But, by all means, make sure to add a few theoretical terms and reference the big names, and voila! A groundbreaking new perspective is born!

Cut to the final award of the evening:

A latecomer, Dr. Kline, in her 30s, who has won the prestigious “Best Use of Marxist-Semiotic Synthesis in an Incoherent Tweet.” Her tweet: “When we dismantle capitalist hegemony, even the simplest signs in our daily lives—like traffic lights or the number of steps to a subway—are engaged in revolutionary praxis. #PowerToTheSigns.”

Dr. Kline (holding up her phone, her lips curled into a satisfied smirk):

I just want to thank everyone for their incredible support of this tweet. I didn’t even need to read anything—just a couple of keywords, and it resonated with so many! This is the future of semiotics! By creating revolutionary discourse in 140 characters or less, I believe we can dismantle the very structure of hegemonic signification.

Audience (spontaneously rises to their feet, tweeting furiously):

#RevolutionIn140Chars #PowerToTheSigns #TheoryForTheFuture

Narrator (voiceover, sardonic):

Dr. Kline has managed the unthinkable: revolutionising Marxist theory through a single, untested tweet. Is the revolution truly about understanding systems, or just about having the right buzzwords in the right order, at the right time?

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In this scene, the absurdity is heightened by showing how people in intellectual communities use buzzwords and theoretical jargon to perform academic rigour without ever truly engaging with the ideas. It satirises how these communities can sometimes prioritise the appearance of knowledge over its substance, turning academic success into a game of who can sound the most intellectual while doing the least work.

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Scene: The Affiliation Awards at the Advanced Semiotics Symposium

After the main awards are handed out, the emcee grins and announces the next category with a knowing look.

Emcee (overly dramatic):

And now, the moment we’ve all been waiting for—the prestigious Affiliation Awards! Tonight, we celebrate those who have mastered the art of theory-signaling, those who wear their intellectual loyalty like a badge of honour! After all, who needs to read the work of Derrida when you can simply declare yourself as “post-structuralist,” am I right?

Audience (laughs nervously, as if unsure whether it’s a joke):

#PostStructuralistPride

Emcee:

Our first category: Best Display of Affiliation to the Neo-Marxist-Postmodernist-Critical-Phenomenological-Dialectical Framework. The nominees are… well, we’ll be honest, they’re all just using a different combination of the same terms, but let’s see who stands out!

Cut to Professor Huxley, a senior academic with wild hair and glasses that seem permanently fixed to his face. He approaches the stage holding a mug that says, “I’m not a traditionalist, but I play one in academia.”

Professor Huxley (proudly):

Thank you, thank you. It’s truly an honour to be recognised for my ongoing commitment to the synthesis of Critical Theory and Quantum Phenomenology. This morning, I referenced Slavoj Žižek and Jacques Lacan in a 15-minute PowerPoint presentation on the inherent contradictions of contemporary dance. It was… explosive. But it wasn’t just the theory—it was my deep commitment to the lineage of post-Marxist thought that truly made it groundbreaking. I’m proud to say my allegiance to this school of thought has allowed me to never actually read the work of any of those theorists. Thank you.

Audience (enthusiastically clapping, furiously tweeting):

#CriticalTheoryDanceRevolution #MarxAndMove #QuantumPhenomenology

Narrator (voiceover):

Ah yes, Professor Huxley—who’s mastered the art of theoretical affiliation by combining a few fancy names and never looking back at the original texts. It’s not about understanding; it’s about aligning oneself with the right movements. Forget the theory itself—what matters is whether you can signal your intellectual belonging to the correct camp.

Emcee (with a knowing nod):

Moving on, we have the award for Most Dramatic Display of Affiliation to the “Post-Post-Modernism” Movement.

Cut to Dr. Eliza—a fresh-faced academic who’s just published her latest book titled “The Post-Post-Post Modern Post-Truth Neo-Reality”. She steps forward with an air of self-satisfaction, adjusting her meticulously curated “radical chic” outfit.

Dr. Eliza (speaking slowly for effect):

I believe that reality is, indeed, a construct, but that construct is continuously evolving—just like the self. By declaring myself a Post-Post-Post Modernist, I position myself as an advocate for an intellectual framework that’s so far ahead of everyone else, it’s practically invisible. No one can truly understand it, because to do so would mean reifying the very thing we’re trying to deconstruct. My books are unreadable, my citations are impossible to track, but my commitment to this ideology is absolute.

Audience (nodding sagely, as though this makes total sense):

#PostPostPostReality #RadicalButUnclear #MetaMetaTheory

Narrator (voiceover, with an amused sigh):

It’s beautiful, really. Dr. Eliza has managed to make an entire career out of the unquantifiable, the nonsensical, and the utterly unfathomable. She has nothing to say—but she has mastered the language of affiliation. And, as we all know, language is everything. Why bother with making an argument when you can just claim your affiliation is the answer?

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In this scene, the satire is aimed at how intellectual affiliation has become more important than the substance of one's work. People don’t need to make actual contributions to the field, as long as they can sign on to the right theoretical camp and demonstrate their commitment through performative gestures. The concept of “affiliation” has replaced intellectual engagement, and the result is a circus of jargon, surface-level insights, and self-congratulatory displays of belonging.

This really taps into the absurdity of a system where the perception of intellectual legitimacy is more valuable than true intellectual rigour, creating an entire ecosystem built around status and signaling, rather than deep engagement with ideas. It’s a critique that echoes broader societal trends in which superficial markers of identity and belonging are prioritised over substance and understanding.