> this is exactly the opposite of what everyone assumes the phrase must mean
Huh, yeah, that's surprising. I always assumed "high concept" meant that a work was more "cerebral" or something like that, while "low concept" is something lowbrow or simple to understand.
I had no idea that the term referred to how succinctly the work can be described or pitched.
It doesn't help that in some cases, it would actually correlate. Take the example from the Wiki:
> high-concept idea, such as "what if we could clone dinosaurs?" as in Jurassic Park.
"What if we could clone dinosaurs?" can unroll into anything between some extremely cerebral biopunk (think "Change Agent" but written by Greg Egan) and sharknando with raptors instead of sharks. In either case, the "elevator pitch" would be good, succinct summary - but, if you were to give that line to people and ask them to imagine what the book is like, the answer would depend entirely on the level of interests and sophistication of individual responders.
Or, in short: if you like cerebral stuff and you hear a "high-concept" pitch, you're likely to assume the work is "high concept" in terms of being full of deep ideas.
"High concept" is a bit of a different case in that nobody ever knows the actual meaning. It's too obvious that, in the absence of the existing meaning, it would mean "conceptually complex". It's not at all obvious why you would use a phrase meaning "conceptually complex" when what you want to say is "conceptually trivial".
Huh, yeah, that's surprising. I always assumed "high concept" meant that a work was more "cerebral" or something like that, while "low concept" is something lowbrow or simple to understand.
I had no idea that the term referred to how succinctly the work can be described or pitched.