(humorous)Used to express that something which presents itself as deep and insightful is actually shallow and immature.
2019, Saul van der Walt, Morsels for the Depressed, Depraved, Pessimistic, and otherwise Declining, →ISBN:
When your entire life’s struggle is reduced to an exemplar of “I’m 14 and this is deep”, like you should know better, except there aren’t any answers, and everyone else puts their head in the sand.
2019 June 23, Cire Drayniv, “Here's how it goes...”, in alt.music.pink-floyd.publius[1] (Usenet), archived from the original on 2024-12-24:
This is the same argument I'm making here with the "I'm 14 and this is deep" notion of "nobody can ever truly know anything", because if you know anything about epistemic philosophy, you'd accept that there are thousands of years of responses to this problem.
As an art form, poetry has become the butt of jokes in recent years, often called “cringeworthy” for its content. The phrase “I’m 14 and this is deep” is believed to have originated from criticizing poetry shared on social networks like Facebook and Instagram.]
Without the title of the painting or the supposed motive for its creation (sadness, anger, etc.) the art has no real value. It rings very similar to those “I’m fourteen and this is deep” posts that trick the viewer into believing that they’re such intuitive and deep thinkers by being able to interpret simple metaphors and analogies that tend to be very much on the nose.
2023 June 20, Mychal Thompson, quoting u/Literacy_Advocate, “19 Award-Winning, Highly Praised Movies That Are Underwhelming, And I Want To Know If You Agree”, in BuzzFeed[2], archived from the original on 2023-06-20:
Crash didn't deserve an Oscar. It wasn't particularly deep or well-made, nor was it particularly nuanced or insightful. Anyone who feels this movie is special must be, 'I'm fourteen, and this is deep.' It was standard Oscar bait, and it sadly worked. It is a very skippable film.
This is incredibly apparent in “Who’s Afraid of Little Old Me?” where the aforementioned asylum lyric appears. It feels like Swift is trying so unbearably hard to be edgy and dark on this record that it comes across as simply comical. The track and the record, as a whole, radiates “I’m 14, and this is deep” energy.
