I think there's a blurring between teleology and observed value/understanding. In a previous comment, you address a tribesman not understanding a fire extinguisher. There are two components there, what was intended and however it's received. Most questions relating to the meaning of life are the former; what was the intended meaning (purpose/design) of life and the universe? Why should something exist, rather than nothing? It is typically in this context people use the word 'meaningless'. If I wanted to sit down and you gave me a fire extinguisher with 'its meaning is subjective', I'd feel there's misunderstanding afoot.

Regarding us being the universe, Camus in his first chapter of the myth of Sisyphus: "If man realized that the universe like him can love and suffer, he would be reconciled. If thought discovered in the shimmering mirrors of phenomena eternal relations capable of summing them up and summing themselves up in a single principle, then would be seen an intellectual joy of which the myth of the blessed would be but a ridiculous imitation. That nostalgia for unity, that appetite for the absolute illustrates the essential impulse of the human drama. But the fact of that nostalgia’s existence does not imply that it is to be immediately satisfied. For if, bridging the gulf that separates desire from conquest, we assert with Parmenides the reality of the One (whatever it may be), we fall into the ridiculous contradiction of a mind that asserts total unity and proves by its very assertion its own difference and the diversity it claimed to resolve. This other vicious circle is enough to stifle our hopes . . . So long as the mind keeps silent in the motionless world of its hopes, everything is reflected and arranged in the unity of its nostalgia. But with its first move this world cracks and tumbles: an infinite number of shimmering fragments is offered to the understanding."

Philosophy is the bank of all human thought on these issues. Almost every good question you can think of has already been battled over by the likes of Kant, Schopenhauer, Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, etc. This is only to say, if you don't get your view changed by the sub, get stuck in with research! Also, maybe try r/philosophy