Meta schmeta
Jennifer of All Things Jennifer received public adulation in Buffalo Spree:
Local blogs can be classified as either mainly political, such as Buffalo Pundit and North Coast Online, or largely personal with some political thoughts thrown in, such as All Things Jen(nifer), one of Bedenko’s favorites, which ranges from thoughts about the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor to decidedly less lofty questions of which celebrities readers have crushes on....
All Things Jen(nifer)’s diary-like entries precisely capture the stream-of-consciousness, meta-narrative that is so characteristic of our multi-tasking digital age. Blogs are written by people doing three things at once, for people who are doing three things at once. They are self-referential and cross-pollinating. They chronicle political movements and are themselves a social phenomenon....
I'll agree that stream of consciousness is a good thing (how many times do I start an entry on one topic and veer off into something completely different?), but I'm disturbed by the use of the term "meta-narrative." Or meta-anything. In jest, Sue Charnley even used the hyphenated term "meta-phor" in a 2000 article. And when you combine "meta" and "meme" in the same word, you're just asking for trouble:
The creation of the Internet caused a sea change in what is perceived as funny. With thousands of images, many of them jarring, blasting their way into our collective psyches day after day, mercilessly, a human defense mechanism kicked in and started to do the only thing it could: laugh. Before the Internet, one could scarcely imagine that two fat hairy men dressed up as anthropomorphized bears banging each other in the ass could be perceived as funny - but such is the world in which we live, thanks, in large part, to the Internet.
One of the other things that has happened is the creation of what could be termed the "extreme meme," variations of which then become their own memes, or what you might refer to as the "extreme meta meme." One further level has come around of late, the "extreme meta-meta meme," and of course, the "extreme meta-meta-meta meme" cannot be far behind. The Internet made it possible for memes to be passed around so quickly that they become universally adopted by anyone who uses the Internet regularly for no other purpose than to demonstrate that they use the Internet regularly....
Um...stream of consciousness bla bla bla...Jen got a nod in The Blog of the Day some time ago. Congrats and stuff.
Back off topic, here's a definition of meta:
meta– or met–
pref.
Later in time: metestrus.
At a later stage of development: metanephros.
Situated behind: metacarpus.
Change; transformation: metachromatism.
Alternation: metagenesis.
Beyond; transcending; more comprehensive: metalinguistics.
At a higher state of development: metazoan.
Having undergone metamorphosis: metasomatic.
Derivative or related chemical substance: metaprotein.
Of or relating to one of three possible isomers of a benzene ring with two attached chemical groups, in which the carbon atoms with attached groups are separated by one unsubstituted carbon atom: meta-dibromobenzene.
[Greek, from meta, beside, after.]
Here comes another one:
meta
One definition of this Greek word is transcending, or going above and beyond. In the computer field, it defines things that embrace more than the usual. For example, a metafile contains all types of data. Meta-data describes other data. See metafile, meta-data and meta tag.
Can I tangentize into non-profundity? I will:
Here comes another one
Here it comes again
Here comes another one
When will it ever end?
I know whatever it is
I've not seen one before
But here comes another one
And here comes a bunch of 'em
Here comes another one
Thank God I'm not having lunch with them.
And now I'll tie it all together now (all together now!):
Low-budget Monty Python anarchy is defiantly consigned to the trashcan of its impoverished British past, leaving spectacularly self-conscious and expensive Broadway pastiche newly ablaze in its medieval wake in the highly accessible and very enjoyable new musical "Monty Python's Spamalot." This show has sufficient laughs and enough genuinely inspired theatrical silliness to ensure boffo Broadway returns and, no doubt, a long Vegas retirement.
My heart will go on, indeed.
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