To reference a movie in common vocabulary is to bring it up in conversation.

Referencing in programming terms like C refers to assigning a value to a variable. You can re-assign those variables to new values and then de-reference (read) the new value.

They are conflating the common meaning of reference with the much more obscure programming definition (obscure at least among non-programmers).

Star wars = "no, I am your father" (reference) Jaws = movie about hunting killer shark (reference) Star wars = movie about hunting killer shark (OP is pretending we can treat movie references like variable references and re-assigns the star wars variable to mean something else) "Hey, have you seen star wars? The movie about hunting a killer shark?" (De-referencing your newly re-assigned variable)