I've heard people say a piece of art thinks it's deep but isn't, or that people think it's deep but it's not. But what media IS deep?

[JoshRaed]

Like music, movies, TV, other things like that.

[morganicfoods]

I've got some deep music for you dw

[kalmia]

Things can be as deep or shallow as you want to be. Art is interpreted by the consumer, is it not? If I want that banana duct taped to the wall piece to be deep despite what everyone says, why can’t I add meaning to it? What considers something as art or “deep” is purely up to your own thoughts, no one else’s.
Pretty simple in my opinion.

[Nugtown]

Watch classic films and shows and come to your own conclusions if that's even possible.

[CarltonIsaac]

[SleepingPoppy]

I’m particularly a fan of indie and experimental game design, where there tends to be weird, innovated, and philosophical exploration of what video games can be. There’s some super cool stuff there, though it doesn’t always make the best games. Haha.

If you’re looking for recommendations of media with depth, maybe the video game SOMA? It’s not super underground, obviously, but it’s a nice balance of game and super thoughtful content. *edit to add: and Senua’s Sacrifice! Which I just think is really neat.

^Not sure if this is what you’re looking for from your original post, but it’s what came to mind for me.

[UrMom]

Good question. I can never tell what that even means since I can't attach to fiction like "normal people". From what I've seen folks find something "deep" or "fake deep" when it's mature and has dark themes, and uses a lot of poetic language. Like supposedly "good" + mature + dark + artsy/poetic = "deep". I assume "fake deep" in that aspect is due to it sounding like something a melodramatic, edgy teenager would create, or at least I certainly would. Sooo "bad" + mature + dark + artsy/poetic = "fake deep".

What is good and bad is subjective, so there's not a real concrete example of one or the other. I can think of a few old school webcomics most people would say are cringe due to their excessive violence, sex and pseudo-intellectual text walls, but I'm sure there are some people out there who think they're the most philosophical comics they've ever read. I can also think of a specific messed up fetish movie that felt like it was 10 hours long because it was so painfully boring, but so many people thought it was So Deep! because the characters were constantly waxing poetics while doing gross stuff, and I just had to waste those hours of my life to see what the hype was about.

[NickRowler]

I guess if you make an emotional connection to something, then it's deep in a subjective way.

I personally thought Links Awakening was deep which might come off as silly to other people. It's a gameboy game for kids. Some people find Bluey deep, but I don't really see it. I guess some people see something there that they connect with.

On the flipside, I have seen cooperate stuff attempt to be "deep" and it can come of as hallow and gimmicky. Big budget DC movie made by WB stating "We live in a society." or the Barbie movie (also WB) trying to state that we fix Barbie by making her more "real". It comes off as pandering.

There is also the stuff that is sort of on the fence. People who like Rick and Morty are going to find it deep. Those who don't like it, are going to find it annoying and just reddit "I'm 14 and this is deep" BS. More or less, if you don't like something, you aren't going to find it deep.

[Lensing]

Counter-question @JoshRaed
How can you say it isn´t deep when you hear people say a piece of art, movie or story
is deep?

[TheLemmaLlama]

deep is when people write video essays on a work. the more video essays you can write on it, the deeper it is /hj

(But seriously though, I do find "how much people have to say about a work" to be a good measure of it's true depth For some spatial intuition, you could go further "down" into a deep tunnel and see new environments and terrains, but if you're in a shallow tunnel all you can do is just stay there and keep taking photos of the same area XD)

[Stargazer31]

I'm not sure what makes a piece of media deep, but I know for certain that Keeping up With the Kardashians and Super Duper Sumos definitely aren't

[Nugtown]

I take issue with the word "deep" since it's got some negative connotations as some nebulous metric to define what's valuable in a work. But things can have an objective level of depth and these are pretty good (fairly over the top haha) examples of something which aren't made to because that's not what they were intended for.

Complexity is synonymous with depth. A car is a complex work of engineering, everything has it's place and a specific function that makes it perform. It's hard to understand as a non mechanic, but me being a dumbass who can't find the seat lever has no bearing on whether I think the car is a simple machine or a grand feat of human engineering. An armful of tangled christmas lights are a big mess that's hard for you to wrap your head around, but they're still just twisted copper wire around rubber, plastic and leds.
Ultimately, if someone is proclaiming something has that level of complexity you can reasonably identify if that's true or not.