The 'It's a Metaphor' meme stems from a pivotal scene in the 2014 film adaptation of John Green's novel, The Fault in Our Stars. In the scene, the character Augustus Waters puts an unlit cigarette in his mouth, explaining that it is a metaphor for putting a 'killing thing' between your teeth but not giving it the power to kill you. The internet embraced the scene's earnest yet somewhat pretentious tone, transforming it into a versatile template for making fun of overly dramatic justifications for everyday behavior. It is commonly used to mock pseudo-intellectualism or to explain away weird habits with ironic gravity.