#109
This post is for show discussion and fandom gossip only. NO ACTOR GOSSIP, NO ACTOR BASHING!!
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THIS JOURNAL LOGS IPS.
Backup location: spnanonhaven
RULES:
1. Threads and individual comments may be frozen, screened or deleted at the mods' discretion.
2. No posting f-locked content.
3. No linking between RL and online identities.
4. Keep the actor gossip to these ( Read more... )
I'm generally impatient with ship meta, but I can see how looking at a disconnected bunch of images with a blinking .gif above them that reads "THEY WANNA KISSY FAAAAAAACE" would prime people to assign the images that interpretation, even if their in-show context would paint a very different picture. I doubt the end result changes much, though, since old-fashioned text ship meta would invent/twist just as much (Castiel mentioned a green car, but the car we actually see is olive, suggesting that Castiel's subconsciously fixated on the color of his favorite hunter's eyes. We see this again when he's especially snippy with Sam when Sam wears green, as if he doesn't like the younger Winchester associating himself Dean's colors). That is, it's the way the information's presented and argued that's different. Tumblr picture-based meta doesn't need to work quite so hard, I don't think, based on my admittedly shallow framework for meta on both platforms.
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Do people use gif essays to do more than one kind of meta, or to do broader meta?
I think another factor is that the gif form may be used more lightly, for intentionally comic effect, so they have a less tin-hattish feel to them. Slapping captions on some con gifs comes across very differently from goss-style "hidden messages" J2 theories, for instance.
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I think you may just not have been exposed to ship meta previously, because there was definitely plenty of it pre-Tumblr. See the ship_manifesto comm, for example. I come from Buffy fandom, and there was a heck of a lot of Spike/Buffy meta over the years (as well, I assume, as Spike/Xander meta and Spike/Angel meta and Buffy/Angel meta, although I didn't pay attention to those), along with the more gen meta focusing on themes or characterization or what have you.
Slapping captions on some con gifs comes across very differently from goss-style "hidden messages" J2 theories, for instance.
True, but nor would I consider captions slapped on con gifs to be meta. Meta requires, like, argument, with a thesis and supporting details - although most people writing meta probably don't think of it in those terms. To me, meta is a form of essay. If the bulk of your argument is composed of gifs, that is not an essay, IMO.
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I know textual ship meta exists, I was wondering more whether gif-based non-ship meta also exists. After all, it's a visual as well as verbal canon. You'd think that gifs could serve the same function as quotations from the scripts, only what they would be quoting would be the acting/directing/cinematographic elements of the text rather than the verbal parts.
Whether putting together a catena of visual quotations with text in the form of captions or framing would ever constitute an essay I'm not sure, but it could still be a form of interpretation, and I'd be willing to call that meta, just maybe a different genre of meta.
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I was wondering more whether gif-based non-ship meta also exists.
I can't link you to any examples at the moment, but I see a ton of it.
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That is actually EXACTLY the post I was thinking of when I wrote that comment. XD I've also seen a lot of interesting tag meta about Castiel and choice in S6 going around recently, so both "meta in the form of gifs" and "meta inspired by gifsets" both definitely happen in the non-shippy arena.
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I saw that post a few days ago. My tagging system is pretty organized so I was able to find it pretty easily: hellohdean.tumblr.com/post/68909821928
(In case others were interested.)
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Thanks, nonnie! I don't know how I feel about its conclusions, since while Dean has broken away from a lot of the early seasons trappings of what John did to and made of him, he's still clearly locked in the cycle of abuse and parentification, but I'm glad it exists.
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I was responding to your first paragraph - I thought you were contrasting text-based meta fandoms of the past which didn't (you said) have ship meta, vs. gif-based meta fandoms of today that do. My point was that both kinds of meta existed and were popular long before Tumblr. However, now that I look at those statements again, I'm not sure what your claim there had to do with the rest of your comment anyway, so my disagreement on that point has no affect on anything else you said.
So I'll just be leaving now. /slinks away
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Are those real arguments or did you make them up?
*is interested*
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Hahahahaha. They were 100% made up, courtesy my brain.
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Awww...would have loved to see those arguments in the wild.
They were just plausible enough to be real.
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