Meta: The Art of Self Reference

I am going to confess something that, as someone who loves playing with words and grammar and syntax, is very difficult to admit. I don't know how to use the word "meta." Metaphysical, metaphor, metamorphosis - those are all concepts I can grasp. But this new slang version of what I used to think was just a prefix completely befuddles me. It is one of those words that extremely cool people use, like Jeff Winger on Community. And I want to be nothing else if not cool.

I told my husband, Dan, about my confusion.

"Meta means self-referential," he said.

"When did it start meaning that?"

"Forever."

Actually, from what I can gather, "meta" has just recently gained popularity as a stand alone colloquialism. Wikipedia claims the term "meta" was coined as a word in the 1979 book Gödel, Escher, Bach: An Eternal Golden Braid. "Meta" was the November 2005 Urban Word of the Day on urbandictionary.com (warning: some entries not suitable for all audiences, and I'm pretty sure they just make some of that stuff up). The New York Times ran an article on the emergence of the prefix-turned-stand-alone-word "meta" in December of 2005. And the modern, hipster definition of "meta" as a self-referential adjective and noun shows up in dictionary.com's 21st Century Lexicon, copyright 2003-2011.

In other words, "meta," in its current usage, is a fairly recent addition to our modern vernacular. It appears that I'm jumping on the Meta Bandwagon a little later than most of the other young, hip people. But, as a mid-thirties professional woman, I have to resign myself that - alas - I am not as young and hip as I used to be.

Even after my extensive (note the sarcasm) research, I still don't know how to use "meta" properly. No one can explain it to my satisfaction. Will I just know it when I see it?

"A film within a film." I can grasp that concept.

"Dude, that's so meta." Not so much.

"That seems somewhat meta, dude." Um, if your defining sentence has "dude" in it . . .

"A lot of rock 'n' roll is 'meta,'" Dan explained to me once. "Listen to just about any Kiss song or 'I Wanna Rock' by Twisted Sister."

It was starting to sink in.

He continued, "Writing about writing or singing about singing."

Then he became philosophical, "Is watching a TV show about watching TV meta, or is watching a TV show about watching yourself watching TV meta? Or is that just more meta?"

I stared at him blankly.

That's when I began using "meta" to mean anything I wanted, kind of like when the Smurfs would replace various parts of speech with “smurfed” (please do NOT consult the Urban Dictionary): "Are you out of your smurf?" "Medical history is about to be smurfed!" "Great Smurf!" or “That’s smurfed up!” (Oh, I don’t think they said that one in the cartoon.)

I have been known to say, "That shirt is so meta," or "I liked the book, but it was kind of meta," just to sound cool. And, before you try to justify my examples, the shirt did not read, "This is a shirt," and the book wasn't a book about a book. Those would truly be meta examples - I think.

"Is 'Who's on First' meta?" I asked Dan one afternoon.

"Probably . . . kind of. . ."

"Meta is like breaking the 4th wall in theater!" I proclaimed a few minutes later.

Dan looked at me with his eyebrows crinkled for a long time.

"Isn't it?" I asked, still awaiting his reply. Then I said quietly, "No."

"It might be an example of meta . . . kind of . . ."

Later that day, Dan and I were talking about a funny video he had taken of me, a video that perfectly depicted my neuroses.

"I think you like that video even though you keep saying it's embarrassing," he said. "You keep showing it to people."

"That's because I'm meta."

"What?"

"Still not right? Dang it. I thought I was getting it."

"Usually ideas are meta, not people," Dan said.

"You just made my brain explode."

Check out my writing in An Eclectic Collage Volume 2: Relationships of Life, now available at www.freundshippress.com. For more information, visit the book's Facebook page.