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slashpine (slashpine) wrote in metametameta,
@ 2008-03-25 14:33:00

Current location:	Home sweet home
Entry tags:	cons, escapade, guidelines, meta friday

Wow. Fandom never stops! Meta[metameta] rocks!
So I've been MIA for most of 4 weeks of travel and learning and too much school (goes without saying, heh), a bit of being sick (bleh), a lot of work (with not enuf $).

Including 3 conferences: 2 academic ones + the fabulous Escapade. Which should be a model for academic cons, IMNSHO.

I've got so darn much to catch up on! *squees happily, hugs fandom* Like: The spanking new (heh, yes, I can haz kinks) METAMETAMETA. Woot!

By a happy collision of events, svartalfurs and skuf and elfwreck and I brainstormed a bunch of last-minute kewl ideas that turned metametameta into a meta party last Friday! It was such a positive thing for IJ and fandom ... and as an alternative to the LJ day-without-posts. Fandom is action, a practice, a positive doing-something, so this was a totally cool idea from Anders & Skuf, to not just *not* do something - but rather to *do*, to *be* the busy hive we are.

And thus, a Do-Be-Dooby-Doo of meta - Meta Friday on IJ, at a new meta asylum. Another way we are building our new IJ home. \O/ Serendipity FTW. I am so totally more than ever fannishly In Awe over svartalfurs and skuf and elfwreck being so creative! And fast!

And? Anyone can host one, right? (Svartalfur? Skuf? We're gonna have more, yesss, preciouss. No? When?)

What I seriously love is how this arose partly out of ESCAPADE and several panels there! Cons rock! (Especially Escapade. Go see escapade_con for squee and discussion. But maybe I loved it so much b/c I haven't been to a con in like 15 years. Invite me to more! Maybe I will love them all! Especially when women run them. Big improvement in content and community. Also, less unwashed teen body odor. And the beach! Loved the walks on the sunny beach, watching the surfer boys. *drools*

Escapade and metastructure! Why IJ fandom needs more.

Part of it is oulangi, who said some things in the panel she co-modded that got me thinking creatively, along with Elfwreck, who was also at Escapade. Oulangi talked about how online fandom needs "metastructure." (What OTW will be, but muchmuchmuchmuchmuch more!) Fannish metastructure is all the places and practices that build connection and thus community in healthy fun ways. Like archives, and fests, icon-sharing and memes. Also friend_me, and asylums for specific fandoms, listserves and all the many other ways we meet and share.

Now Oulangi is a metafandom editor, which is part of the metastructure. But this is why she specifically didn't simply promote MF as the answer. (IIRC, she's a founder or even *the* founder, but I need someone to check me on that.) In the panel (which at Escapade is one big cool discussion, a face2face meta, not talking heads and bored/impatient audience/schoolchildren), we talked about how the fact that metafandom links to private journals, means that the risk of massive wank can make users end up either not saying anything that could blow up into wank, or screening comments, or locking the post. Or even not posting at all, b/c having strangers - or even your own flist - argue with you, or each other, in your own journal, can be too much like RL - a total pain. Thus you end up with fans locking their journals, or their mouths, or their minds. Self-censoring. This IZ NOT a fandom value!

Meta links are a huge part. But "neutral turf" is needed, too.

But that's because metafandom and in IJ, metaroundup (and more recently now, metafandom in IJ too), are not discussion forums themselves. Besides the meta links comms, we need other metastructures too. So there, and in another Escapade panel, we spent an hour (and much more afterward) discussing the need for some "neutral" turf outside people's personal journals, or fandom-specific communities, where fen can go find and talk about news of all kinds. (And also, with ground rules and/or modding that keep discussions in that neutral zone, not neutral as in indifferent, but as in passionate-without-hurting people and the whole bahlete/ban/leave fandom kind of thing. Elfwreck's posted some of those results, a preliminary "what kind of meta is this" thing, in meta3 user info. More from my notes, later. *g*)

Now, we already have yourlibrarian's cool mind_over_meta. Which metametameta is already linked to because M-over-meta does mainly fandom-specific stuff, while meta3 wants to let people ~~go really nuts~~, er ~~take on everything~~, um, do what Elfwreck has termed "meta-meta." This is where we might include canon meta (more about the text, or from a POV within the text) and "show" or fanon meta (about the author or producers or RL effects on the text) but mainly go on ~~and on~~ about fandom itself, like why we are who we are and where we are and what we write. (This might compare to Text, Author, and Reader interpretations; and I also learned the cool terms Watsonian and Doylean for the first 2... need a 3rd. But more of those notes later.)

No, Virginia, meta is *not* another name for fandom_wank.

Sad to say, there is only one well-known community for "News" and discussion in online fandom: Fandom_Wank. And as Oulangi said - and she knows, from the inside - FW was *not* not not meant to be a "news" source, but a news wank. Or more precisely, a place to mock other people's wank. Nowadays FW has become more a source for making wank.

FW has increasingly slid from fun and slightly educational point-and-mock (*not* go-there-and-troll) into general wankery with no modding (see: "go-there-and-troll") and often no fun, either. This is probably in part related to the fact that fandom hasn't got any general news forums for discussion -- that is, general meta. People go to FW to find info and links about any hot new item, and it's generally only the worst flameish side of things they see. It's fine if FW is a place (even if it didn't mean to be) for fen who want to rant and mock about whatever's happening. But others, or even FW people the rest of the time, want non-mocky news, and a place to discuss it without always being pressured to top every insult with another one, or being afraid (and with good reason) to disagree.

What's needed, Oulangi pointed out, is intervention and detox for FW... Er, no, that's not what she said. FW is someone else's ~~codependency~~ topic. What we talked about is how we need to build another part of the fannish "metastructure" -- a news & views part. A meta place for broad-ranging topics, questions about them, and the tolerant exchange of many views. In a place kept free of wank, but not fleeing to the Cult of Nice, either, but rather being a place for thinking beyond simple (fun! but simple) shippy-squee, flameish rants, or lolcat sillies with no substance. Even though lolcats can be parody, a way to comment on srs issues while still showing fannish Wuv: like Oulangi's own [flocked, sorry] Escapade presentation of the Lolcat Fannish Cycle of Meta.

So I instantly thought: OOH! YESS! metametameta! This paid asylum a friend had gifted to me suddenly saw its calling. But I am busy. And lazy. And like to work in a group! So when svartalfurs and skuf pondered doing something in IJ on no-LJ Friday, I was all like, Oooh wow, good idea! Can! Here! *points incoherently* And metametameta + Meta Friday = a new metastructure is born!

And the metas people posted! Makes me think Oulangi is totally right, and however meta3 turns out, fannish metastructure is clearly a hot demand. Especially at IJ. Where we are like a little Habitat for Humanity team, only building our whole IJ town! \O/

Me-Ta! Par-Ty! Or, why I love my flist

I am still all CAPSLOCK OF GLEE over the many different metas that got posted, and svartalfur master list and everything! Even though I couldn't post or even read, being at this conference that *didn't even have* wireless. (B/c it was the San Francisco Marriott who are all like Welcome Guests, For Your Convenience An Extra Charge for Breathing! California money fetishism in its highest form - we are Beautiful Rich Ultra-Cool! Even while wrecking the planet and screwing over you peons who earn less than US $2M/year.)

So I have to read, comment, catch up with 297462t651!!1 things in fandom. Urk. But joy! B/c fandom is teh fun. I'm so glad to be back!

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elfwreck
2008-03-26 04:33 am UTC (link)

I was surprised, as I got involved in fandom on LJ, that there was no general meta community. That most fandoms don't have a meta community at all, and the closest they get is character or pairing comms that might take ship manifestos.

HP has hp_essays, and I found that early, and went looking for its equivalent in other fandoms... nope, not there. And nothing for more general meta, for cross-fandom meta.

It's been interesting watching various topics sweep across the fansphere, heralded by

metafandom. IBARW shows up, and there's a dozen posts on racism, followed by two dozen posts on how they're tired of reading posts on racism, followed by three dozen posts either ranting at the apathetic or exhorting fans to stick up for their beliefs and values because if we don't talk about them, well, silence=death. And so on.

I watch a dramatic post spark three responses in different people's journals, and those responses spark eight more, some of which are so tangential to the original they're not even on the same topic. And it's great to see the process... but it'd also be great to have a place to condense those discussions, to have people be able to post a new set of thoughts and know it'd be read by people who had the background to follow it.

And it'd be really, really great to have a place to say, "Hey, I've put together some numbers about women's hairstyles on the Enterprise, Serenity and Farscape; anyone wanna try to draw some conclusions?" without having to crosspost it to three different fandoms' communities.

I'm thinking of doing a "meta Friday" thing on Thursdays--post 2-5 meta-ish ideas or questions on Thursday evenings, in the hopes of sparking meta to be posted on Fridays.

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slashpine
2008-03-26 05:04 am UTC (link)

I think Friday meta parties are a cool idea! Especially the way it's been set up already - post here, or a link to your journal post. People have a choice on exposure, as it were. For instance, if I were going to post something like I sometimes have that gets people excited and draws dozens of comments, I would post at metaX3 so other people could reply - because I'm sometimes dragged away for hours or days, and thus feel guilty whenever I "start a conversation" I can't finish in my journal.

Love your description of topics sweeping the fansphere... especially "a dozen posts on X, followed by 2 dozen on how they're tired of posts on X, then 3 dozen exhorting and ranting for not being silent!" HAHAHAHahhahaha. Fandom, how we love thee.

Yes, it would be *awfully* nice to have a bit more centrality. Because yeah, there are some meta issues where I'm interested, but either I don't know where the previous posts are that everyone's following up on, or they got taken down or locked, or I simply don't have the time to go through 82634 journals and 293847162 to the nth threaded comments to find the pieces.

Friday metas, and a place to post general and X-over info, sound a bit like what fanthropology does on LJ (at least Friday questions, if not full-on metas). But this is IJ, so no collision there. Still, thinking about how to do all the right things that have been done before, or elsewhere, and how to even do them more interestingly: that seems like a great goal!

And, I was also really surprised at how few and narrow-band the meta comms are. Since so many people write it, and it often gets 3 or more pages of comments! That's way more than most fics. So I don't know why meta would be overlooked or discounted as an activity. Maybe... *drops voice to scandalized whisper* ... it's supposed to stay in people's journals, where decent people simply looking for teh p0rn don't have to see it.

(Also, women's SF show hairstyles? Sporfle! Yeoman Rand(?) in ST:TOS Season 1, with the basket-weave mountain! ROFL. Almost ended my love of the show every time she came on. Nothing against the actress, doing her best with a pathetic character, but every time what appeared to be a chunky go-go dancer with a baby-doll voice and pouty pale pink lips wandered onto the bridge, my suspension of disbelief about broke under the strain. No wonder we fanned the men; at least they weren't totally ridiculous looking so long as you never looked at their pant legs blousing out from where they were tucked into their pointy-toed little elf boots.)

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pandorasblog
2008-03-26 07:30 pm UTC (link)

"HP has hp_essays, and I found that early, and went looking for its equivalent in other fandoms... nope, not there. And nothing for more general meta, for cross-fandom meta."

Yes, I've found very little for most fandoms - though I'm glad to learn of hp_essays. The Vampire Chronicles has the_elitist_vc on LJ, where we get a lot of canon meta and a little fandom meta, but for meta on my other book fandoms, I usually end up Googling for discussion forums. I'd certainly like to see more centralised meta in the journal-based part of fandom.

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slashpine
2008-03-26 07:54 pm UTC (link)

Well, then. We'll just have to make sure meta3 provides a good big bunch of it!

*thinks*

I need to nudge Elfwreck to post some kindofa "prompts here" message on Thursday... so we can always have a nice cookie jar of meta prompts and can fish a few good ones out every Friday!

*makes puppy-eyes at Elfwreck*
*makes puppy-eyes at you too* -- Got any burning yearning for metas you'd love to see? Or have their been, uh, "incisive" discussions on the_elitist_vc that would be fun for broader fandom?

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pandorasblog
2008-03-26 08:15 pm UTC (link)

Fandom-specific: I'm always wishing I could find meta on The Dark Tower. There's so much of interest to discuss both from an in-world and external perspective, and I've often thought that the character of Susannah is of interest because of the fact that King, unusually (and bloody awesomely in my book), has created a character with a disability who is an action heroine.

Externally speaking, on forums I've seen a lot of interesting discussion on the way the books have been written and why and whether this is a good thing. Not to mention that there's rich potential for discussion about authors who insert themselves into canon as characters, as King does in this series. His accident and its effect on his life and writing are inextricably intertwined with the course of the series both in reality and in the world of the books.

the_elitist_vc - We've often got into the morals of the characters, both in individual cases (whether Marius's relationship with Armand is exploitative) and in general.

I remember one great discussion about how the vampires (in common with a lot of the more decadently luxurious vampires in books) tend to be fascinated by glamour and beauty, and generally seek this in their victims and fledglings rather than searching in poverty and ugliness. There's a cavalier approach to anything squalid and poor. We were interested in how this impacted on us as readers; how prepared we are to overlook the vampires' snobbery and elitism because they are beautiful; how we may notice only what they as narrators notice.

chiana606 in particular has been responsible for generating a lot of great discussion; I don't know if she's over here or not but will forward this to her just in case.

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elfwreck
2008-03-26 09:55 pm UTC (link)

The problem isn't in coming up with meta prompts; it's trying to decide how many to post, and whether to link them to some kind of theme.

Been pondering something like
Prompt #1--Canon-related: Which two characters from different fandoms would you like to see interact? Do you want them slashed, or one to rescue the other, or what?

Prompt #2--Standard meta topic: Short fic vs long fic--we mostly like long fic, if it's good... what things would make you click away from a long fic but not a short one? Do you like different things in short vs long fics? (How do you define short vs long?)

Prompt #3--Pointless (but fun) Babble: Characters of other Colors:--how do non-human-colored characters show up in fic? Zahn from Farscape, Shrek, Kermit, Andorans... could you put together an archive of fic centered on blue, green & purple characters?

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