seperis has a really fascinating post here trying to tease out the differences between fanfic written pre-LJ and on/during LJ. And 
princessofj riffs off that here, talking about the theory of "waves" in fanfic.I commented in
seperis' post about this, but I figure I might as well also ask it here:Like with waves of fanfic, do you guys also think there are waves of meta?
I used to be addicted to The Fanfic Symposium and FCA-L and Prospect-L (even though I wasn't in Sentinel fandom!) and
metablog and now metafandom. (And mutant_allies. Remember mutant_allies?)IIRC (and maybe I don't), there was a lot of meta in the mailing list days that fell under the heading of, "Why Are You Hurting Me With Your Shitty Fanfic?" IIRC (and again, maybe I'm not; feel free to correct or offer your own memories), this partly sprang out of a context in Sentinel fandom where it was Really Uncool to say anything negative or critical, so I imagine creating a space where you could finally say, "Why the fuck does Blair have an herbal scent?" could be quite freeing.
When I think of mailing-list-era meta, I associate it with meta that essentially asks, "Why Are You Doing This And Don't You Know That It's Bad?" (I sound harsh when I put it that way. The thing is, like I said, I loved ML-era meta. I was addicted. And I like now-era meta, too.) I also think of many debates along the lines of, "Rapefic (or RPS or H/C or Insert Genre Here): A-Ok or Totally Fucked Up?"
Which is something I don't really see much of today. And when I do, it feels old-school. When I see meta like that, I think, "first (or first couple of) fandom(s)"; when I think the current "wave" or flavor of meta that seemed to come in with LJ, I think "panfandom" and "fans that have been in a bunch of fandoms by now."
And I also tend to feel that with a lot of LJ-era meta, that there's been a sort of... consensus reached re: "Why Are You Doing This And Don't You Know That It's Bad?" where the answers are, "Because it's a kink" and "'Bad' is relative." Where it's almost part of the ground rules for debate, if that makes sense. As well as a sense that we've basically looped back around: not only is "bad" relative, but that "bad" is good -- everything is kink, own your kinks, embrace your shame, Id Vortex.
I don't want to construct a false Progress Narrative here -- okay, maybe I do a tiny bit, because I do feel like fannish meta has gotten more sophisticated as time has passed -- but I realize that I'm generalizing a lot and probably flattening a lot of shades of gray into black-and-white, that this comes off a bit as, "In 1999, we were Vulcans that wanted everyone to be a Serious Writer, and there were Absolutes and certain things were Not Okay, but in the 2000s, we're hippies -- smoke a bong, man, pass the slave AU." And, okay, sometimes it feels that way in my memory, but that's most likely an emotional memory that's not really syncing up with the complexities going on at the time. (I remember people loving on slave AUs then!)
I do feel like back then, there wouldn't have been this sense of characterization as a shared interpretation by a community... and I feel like, these days, it's more common to look at fanfic not just as writing/art, but writing/art meets utility... what does this kind of fanon do for us, what does this characterization do for us, how are we turning this into a tool for our own pleasure, how do we analyze our pleasure?
I realize I am completely ignoring zines/APAs and the meta that went on there, since I wasn't around for that stage of fandom. (I remember loving the "Men Bonking" essay, and being really entertained by how the fandom debates excerpted from zines in that essay were essentially exactly the same as the ones we were having in the late '90s.)
I hope I haven't sounded too harsh to mailing-list-era meta; I was addicted to that meta, man, I was a fan; I still am! I'm about to go and reminisce right now.
So, waves of meta: is this a thing? Maybe? Anyone?
(...I edited this SO many times because I worried I was sounding unintentionally wanky. :/ )
ETA: So I'm looking at some of my old LJ meta, and I'm feeling a little like a dumbass, because hey! There's lots of overlap there between what I think of as "first wave" and "second wave" -- if anything, there's more "first wave"-style stuff.
And yet, I still feel like there is a difference between Meta, Then And Now. I don't know. Help?
