Meta as an oral tradition
I meta (Engage in meta? Commit meta? What's the verb here?) all the time. But you'd never know from this journal. There are some clues to this habit appearing over in yukihada's journal. Yuki is my frequent meta partner, and this is despite the lack of major overlaps in fandom. Well, other than Harry Potter, but really, who ISN'T in HP fandom?
I suppose there's a number of reasons. There's the fandom to RL friend ratio, which is finally tilting to the fandom side, but... I see traces of that same problem in yuki's latest post, in fact - the need to defend devoting so much energy to thinking fannish things. I'm mostly resigned to either defending slash or ignoring the disses from friends. But I forget that fannishness and fanfiction/meta more generally do attract criticism, and I'm taken off guard when the disparagement of my fannish activities is that I'm interactively fannish at all - whether I'm writing slash, discussing het 'ships or reading gen is immaterial to the attitude of disapproval. I hate getting blindsided by the "Let it go, it's just fiction/tv/a movie" school of thought. Especially when espoused by intelligent and geeky people! [See also CJ 230: Alternative Means of Social Control, avoidance as conflict resolution technique. /pointless inside joke]
Then there's my tendency to appropriate others' thoughts into my own construction of How Things Work. If other fans are building Coliseums of original thought, I'm more a medieval Roman using their nicely pre-cut blocks for my house. Which is fine, when I'm talking with friends. I can synthesize and sum up and not worry about whether I'm either completely explaining another's point of view or whether I can remember for certain sure where I picked up an idea. Not that I'm not prone to citation anyway, but I don't feel bad on those times when I can't or don't remember my source.
But above and beyond that, I think I have trouble deciding what's actually interesting to other people outside of direct conversation. When we're talking face-to-face (or side-by-side, whatever), I can hear immediately whether an introduced idea simply fades into silence or strikes a chord with the other person. Regardless of whether that chord is harmonious or dissonant, at least I know there's something worth discussing! I've been feeling a bit self-conscious about rambling on if I don't know someone will be interested in reading it. Not that one could tell from this entry.
All of which is to say, maybe I should take a note from Yuki and start sharing more of my thoughts here.
I suppose there's a number of reasons. There's the fandom to RL friend ratio, which is finally tilting to the fandom side, but... I see traces of that same problem in yuki's latest post, in fact - the need to defend devoting so much energy to thinking fannish things. I'm mostly resigned to either defending slash or ignoring the disses from friends. But I forget that fannishness and fanfiction/meta more generally do attract criticism, and I'm taken off guard when the disparagement of my fannish activities is that I'm interactively fannish at all - whether I'm writing slash, discussing het 'ships or reading gen is immaterial to the attitude of disapproval. I hate getting blindsided by the "Let it go, it's just fiction/tv/a movie" school of thought. Especially when espoused by intelligent and geeky people! [See also CJ 230: Alternative Means of Social Control, avoidance as conflict resolution technique. /pointless inside joke]
Then there's my tendency to appropriate others' thoughts into my own construction of How Things Work. If other fans are building Coliseums of original thought, I'm more a medieval Roman using their nicely pre-cut blocks for my house. Which is fine, when I'm talking with friends. I can synthesize and sum up and not worry about whether I'm either completely explaining another's point of view or whether I can remember for certain sure where I picked up an idea. Not that I'm not prone to citation anyway, but I don't feel bad on those times when I can't or don't remember my source.
But above and beyond that, I think I have trouble deciding what's actually interesting to other people outside of direct conversation. When we're talking face-to-face (or side-by-side, whatever), I can hear immediately whether an introduced idea simply fades into silence or strikes a chord with the other person. Regardless of whether that chord is harmonious or dissonant, at least I know there's something worth discussing! I've been feeling a bit self-conscious about rambling on if I don't know someone will be interested in reading it. Not that one could tell from this entry.
All of which is to say, maybe I should take a note from Yuki and start sharing more of my thoughts here.