![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Entry tags:
Redefining Meta
In fandom meta is a catch all (and yet highly contested) term for what otherwise would be known as modernist and postmodernist fiction and most, if not all, theoretical discussion of literary trends and related social issues. When we speak of metafic (as opposed to the metafiction of the 'real' literary world) we're often referring to:
a) self-conscious fiction
b) fiction which is concious of being part of a larger social, political or literary paradigm
c) fiction which is experimental, or defies narrative norms
d) artfic/litfic/wankfic
In literary criticism, the term metafiction refers merely to writing about writing, or a fictional text that explores the issues of writing. Metafiction is often typified by a narrative paradox - we are reading the story of how the story was, or came to be written - and is always highly self-conscious of its status as art(ifice). Metafiction doesn't seek to disguise its fictional status, instead, its purpose is to exploit and explore it.
Metafiction is usually associated with the modern and postmodern movements, which together encompass the above definitions of fandom meta.
I can't be certain when the the term meta came into popular use in fandom, but it I do have an idea of why it, rather than another term, was latched onto and diffused. I would appreciate anyone with a clearer picture of the rise of fannish meta, speaking up and educating me on the 'actual history' *coughcough* of the term in fandom.
Before becoming involved in the livejournal community, I hadn't often encountered the term in fannish discourse. It popped up in debates on FAP and other lists every once in a while, and I was always struck by how poor a grasp people seemed to have on its definition. It was being used in the oddest of ways. On lj, however, it's pervasive. Downright pandemic. Every third post is called meta, either by the writer, the commenters, or people linking to the post. Hell, if I write an essay on shipping tendancies that'll be called meta.
This diffusion of the terms meaning has to do with the kind of blurring of explicit fiction and essays about that the fan fiction community on lj engages in. LJ is 'behaving' as a sprawling communal text and our subculture as a narrative. Our readings of essays and fics are coming closer and closer together. I'm going to suggest a few reasons why:
1. Our interraction occurs in the same text-based medium, with their being no visual cues to distinguish between essays and fiction. Neither are there any of the sort of rules that academia provides us, no clear lines between what one can call fiction or essay.
2. We are interracting with each other through assumed identities - characters - and sharing extremely selective versions of our lives - stories - with each other. We are conditioned by fandom and lj to read everything as fiction. Never mind the eternal inability to find some kind of irreducable, ultimate truth, we can't even be sure that the sweet girl we're having a conversation with in one journal, isn't the troll we're fighting with in another. Sockpuppets, multiple and partitioned identies and frequent name changes contribute to the fictionalization of identity.
3. The proliferation of RPGs and parody journals only add to the fragmentation of identity. Will we soon percieve fannish identity as multiple by nature? Jane writes as Sue, posts as Chicky345, chats as MoonFairy, RPs as Narcissa in one game, Ron in another and maintains a journal where she sends up Mary BNF. Who the fuck is Jane? Is Jane being dishonest, or deliberately fictionalizing herself, or is this just how Jane feels most comfortable expressing herself?
4. We are a community of writers and readers, and as such status is based on our facility at these two activites. An excellent body of fic and an articulate, fascinating journal both accord one a certain measure of admiration and as strategies, they are often conflated.
One of ways fanfiction has been commonly described, or discussed is as an argument. The fan writer is telling another writer how she thinks something should or could be, based on her reading of canon and her own desires. Every fic is an argument for a particular reading of the source text. In a parody, the writer is telling us that she Ron as a homophobic bigot and further that she has a problem with that characteristic. In a 'darkfic' an author is telling us that average Gryffindor Ginny has the potential for Slytherin ambition and is capable of doing terrible things, and she points to areas of canon which support her reading. The author is making an argument, regardless of whether she believes it to be based on a perfect or 'proper' reading of the source text. How many of us have seen author's notes reading, "I don't think it's like this in canon, but if it Harry and Draco were in love, it might happen like this"?
We might consider fanon as a dominant paradigm that fics either affirm or challenge to varying degrees. Control of the paradigm, via influential stories or criticism, is articulated through linking and quoting. Fannish politics becomes an argument to control the arguments about a particular text, and therefore shape the resulting, derivative fictional texts and discussion of those derivative texts. Phew. *tonguetied*
If fics are arguments and ljs are often arguments about those arguements, then it isn't so hard to see why our essays are being called meta. Fannish meta is still self-concious writing about the process of writing, but the text it is calling attention to is much broader than the literary one. Fannish meta seems to explore the way our representations (online identities) write fanfic, and about writing fanfic, and how the process of fragmentation/fictionalization/dissociation affects those narratives. When Sarah writes an essay about how the H/D 'ship' functions and the implications for fic, she is writing fannish meta, because she is examining how H/D fic is affected by arguments about H/D and further, how the personalities behind those arguments are shaped by necessity, whim and fandom.
Or something.
Will spellcheck later, when not using an evil Mac. *shudders*
a) self-conscious fiction
b) fiction which is concious of being part of a larger social, political or literary paradigm
c) fiction which is experimental, or defies narrative norms
d) artfic/litfic/wankfic
In literary criticism, the term metafiction refers merely to writing about writing, or a fictional text that explores the issues of writing. Metafiction is often typified by a narrative paradox - we are reading the story of how the story was, or came to be written - and is always highly self-conscious of its status as art(ifice). Metafiction doesn't seek to disguise its fictional status, instead, its purpose is to exploit and explore it.
Metafiction is usually associated with the modern and postmodern movements, which together encompass the above definitions of fandom meta.
I can't be certain when the the term meta came into popular use in fandom, but it I do have an idea of why it, rather than another term, was latched onto and diffused. I would appreciate anyone with a clearer picture of the rise of fannish meta, speaking up and educating me on the 'actual history' *coughcough* of the term in fandom.
Before becoming involved in the livejournal community, I hadn't often encountered the term in fannish discourse. It popped up in debates on FAP and other lists every once in a while, and I was always struck by how poor a grasp people seemed to have on its definition. It was being used in the oddest of ways. On lj, however, it's pervasive. Downright pandemic. Every third post is called meta, either by the writer, the commenters, or people linking to the post. Hell, if I write an essay on shipping tendancies that'll be called meta.
This diffusion of the terms meaning has to do with the kind of blurring of explicit fiction and essays about that the fan fiction community on lj engages in. LJ is 'behaving' as a sprawling communal text and our subculture as a narrative. Our readings of essays and fics are coming closer and closer together. I'm going to suggest a few reasons why:
1. Our interraction occurs in the same text-based medium, with their being no visual cues to distinguish between essays and fiction. Neither are there any of the sort of rules that academia provides us, no clear lines between what one can call fiction or essay.
2. We are interracting with each other through assumed identities - characters - and sharing extremely selective versions of our lives - stories - with each other. We are conditioned by fandom and lj to read everything as fiction. Never mind the eternal inability to find some kind of irreducable, ultimate truth, we can't even be sure that the sweet girl we're having a conversation with in one journal, isn't the troll we're fighting with in another. Sockpuppets, multiple and partitioned identies and frequent name changes contribute to the fictionalization of identity.
3. The proliferation of RPGs and parody journals only add to the fragmentation of identity. Will we soon percieve fannish identity as multiple by nature? Jane writes as Sue, posts as Chicky345, chats as MoonFairy, RPs as Narcissa in one game, Ron in another and maintains a journal where she sends up Mary BNF. Who the fuck is Jane? Is Jane being dishonest, or deliberately fictionalizing herself, or is this just how Jane feels most comfortable expressing herself?
4. We are a community of writers and readers, and as such status is based on our facility at these two activites. An excellent body of fic and an articulate, fascinating journal both accord one a certain measure of admiration and as strategies, they are often conflated.
One of ways fanfiction has been commonly described, or discussed is as an argument. The fan writer is telling another writer how she thinks something should or could be, based on her reading of canon and her own desires. Every fic is an argument for a particular reading of the source text. In a parody, the writer is telling us that she Ron as a homophobic bigot and further that she has a problem with that characteristic. In a 'darkfic' an author is telling us that average Gryffindor Ginny has the potential for Slytherin ambition and is capable of doing terrible things, and she points to areas of canon which support her reading. The author is making an argument, regardless of whether she believes it to be based on a perfect or 'proper' reading of the source text. How many of us have seen author's notes reading, "I don't think it's like this in canon, but if it Harry and Draco were in love, it might happen like this"?
We might consider fanon as a dominant paradigm that fics either affirm or challenge to varying degrees. Control of the paradigm, via influential stories or criticism, is articulated through linking and quoting. Fannish politics becomes an argument to control the arguments about a particular text, and therefore shape the resulting, derivative fictional texts and discussion of those derivative texts. Phew. *tonguetied*
If fics are arguments and ljs are often arguments about those arguements, then it isn't so hard to see why our essays are being called meta. Fannish meta is still self-concious writing about the process of writing, but the text it is calling attention to is much broader than the literary one. Fannish meta seems to explore the way our representations (online identities) write fanfic, and about writing fanfic, and how the process of fragmentation/fictionalization/dissociation affects those narratives. When Sarah writes an essay about how the H/D 'ship' functions and the implications for fic, she is writing fannish meta, because she is examining how H/D fic is affected by arguments about H/D and further, how the personalities behind those arguments are shaped by necessity, whim and fandom.
Or something.
Will spellcheck later, when not using an evil Mac. *shudders*