Meta - Fanlore

Meta is a term used in fandom, particularly LiveJournal-based fandom, to describe a discussion of fanworks of all kinds, fan work in relation to the source text, fanfiction characters and their motivation and psychology, fan behavior, or fandom itself.

A meta essay is a fan-authored piece of non-fiction writing that discusses any of the above topics.

In fanworks

Sometimes fanworks themselves become metafic, where characters within the text comment on canon or fandom. Back when RPF was rare, some people called any story meta where the characters and the actors for those characters interacted.

In vids, the tag meta is occasionally used when images of fans appear along with images of characters, but the term metavid is more commonly used to describe a vid that comments on a specific show, or its fandom, or fandom as a whole.

Meta Fanworks

• As Lucid as Hell^[1], a popslash story by Sandy the Older, set in "The Popslash Works In Progress Dorm" where the characters talk about the stories they're characters in, and complain about how slow their authors are.
• In Wendi Jeff and Saundra Mitchell's H:LOTS story Permanently Offline, the actual show's characters were the "real characters" working for the Baltimore PD, having to deal with the actors, and the fans, of a popular show based on their activities.
• Women's Work by Luminosity & Sisabet^[2] is a fairly explicit (and controversial) commentary on misogyny in the text for Supernatural.
• Gus Goes For The Gold Star^[3], a slash Psych story by Livia, is a Yuletide story about Gus writing a Yuletide story -- meta and recursive, both!
• Us by lim is a multifandom vid about fandom, and the ways that fans manipulate and use their canon sources.

Meta Communities

• 2002: The Metablog noticeboard community provided a central place to post links to "blogs and LJs that discuss issues of importance to fandom." Metaquotes community provides the lighter side.

• 2005: The metafandom newsletter community on LiveJournal and (after Strikethrough, 2007) on InsaneJournal compiles links to "interesting discussions in fandom" over both journalling sites (but no blogs).

• 2007: The meta_roundup community on InsaneJournal compiles links to ""fannish stuff of interest" on InsaneJournal exclusively.

Meta Resources

• The Fanfic Symposium

References

1. ↑ [1] Sandy Keene (Older). As Lucid As Hell. Accessed January, 2009.
2. ↑ [2] Luminosity & Sisabet. Women's Work (on viddler). Accessed 28 December 2009.
3. ↑ [3] Gus Goes For the Gold Star (on Yuletide). Accessed 28 December 2009.