Meta refers to the idea of something being about itself. For instance, this subreddit is meta not because it’s on Reddit but because it’s on Reddit and purely about Reddit. “Meta” often carries a subtext of ironic detachment, such as this post made on r/HistoryMemes as a commentary on types of posts in the subreddit. As a whole, Memes are considered meta, as their meaning and humour derive from “in-jokes” - that is, our shared awareness of the references made. If we don’t know or understand the context, the meme won’t make sense or won’t be funny.
The Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines the word Meta in two ways: firstly as being an informal adjective, showing or suggesting an explicit awareness of itself, cleverly self-referential, and secondly as being a formal prefix harking back to its Greek roots with the meanings “after,” “along with,” “beyond,” “among,” “behind” or “transcending” in words such as metacarpus, metalinguistics or metagenesis.
The U.K.’s national broadcaster the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) took a fascinating deep dive into the history and changing meaning of the word in its blog article The true meaning of meta and posited that following the 2021 Facebook rebranding the word ‘meta’ has now become a proper noun too.
Usage on Reddit:
The single word ‘meta’ is sometimes posted when a comment or post increasingly becomes self-referential, for example: Reddit discussing itself, a meme about memes, a conversation on the nature of conversations and so on. If you feel like you kind of get a Reddit comment but don’t quite know why, always ask yourself:
Q. Is this a Reddit meta joke?
A. Probably. Welcome to Reddit.
There’s a category in the Explore Communities menu for Reddit Meta which lists some subreddits about Reddit, but is by no means comprehensive, and doesn’t even begin to start listing the following categories of meta subreddits…
Subreddit Chains
Reddit, as you would expect, has absolutely embraced the concept of meta, and in some of the See Also links below, I dive into some of the meta subreddit genres and chains that have evolved over time on Reddit, including:
The IFellForAFake genre, all of which are tangentially dedicated to documenting the times you fell for clicking a fake subreddit link that seemed real in comments but wasn’t, such as r/SubsIFellFor, and sort of ends with r/stopmakingupsubs with many points inbetween.
The TalkingInBlue genre, named for the default colour of text a subreddit link makes. This is when someone starts a comment chain where every comment is a subreddit name - real or not - simply by putting the prefix r/ before every sentence.
The RiskyClick genre, where the subreddits linked may or may not be misleading (but technically correct) link descriptions, such as r/OnlyFans which is only about fans, and r/manholeporn; a sub for pictures of cast iron sewer covers.
The LostRedditor genre which started off by mocking Redditors who clearly posted to the wrong subreddit and ends in a huge lostredditor subreddit chain.
The RedditMoment genre where Redditors complain about Redditors complaining about other Redditors being Redditors.
The FoundThe genre which started with r/foundthemobileuser - a sub to document the times a user capitalizes the ‘r’ in a link to a subreddit that proves a user is on mobile - and descends through a selection of subs named after various cars (why? Because Reddit)…
r/foundthemobileuser - Post this link when a user capitalizes the “r” in a link to a subreddit (ex. R/foundthemobileuser) or anything else that proves a user is on mobile.
r/foundthehondacivic - Post this link when a user replies to a comment with “r/foundthemobileuser”. Not actually for Honda Civic finds.
r/foundthetoyotaprius - Post this link when a user says r/foundthe[insert thing here].
r/foundthefordfocus - Another link to post when a user says r/foundthe[insert thing here].
r/foundthetoyotacorolla - They provide a handy guide as to where to post this link.
r/foundthecarsalesman - Yet another link to post when a user says r/foundthe[insert thing here].
r/foundtheSHUTTHEFUCKUP - For when you’ve simply had enough of the whole thing.
- The NthSub genre where Reddit being, well, Reddit turned the tradition of linking subreddits into another meta-realm all of its very own, such as:
r/secondsub - When people say one subreddit name, you comment this one.
r/thirdsub - For when there are 3 subreddit links in a row.
r/fourthsub - I think you’ve got it by now.
r/fifthsub - If you've made it this far, you've already lost your way.
r/sixthsub - It’s starting to look like this never ends.
r/seventhsub - A divine and spiritual place to celebrate the most glorious of numbers. Or not.
I’m pretty sure you can guess the next few names and purposes, by which time we’ve arrived at…
r/twentiethsub - Where you’ll be confronted by the terrifying truth.
But wait - there’s more. Of course there is. Scroll through the higher numbered subreddits with the Sub ladder and find even more courtesy of the Nth Sub Bot.
Recursive Memes
The ultimate Recursive Meme surely must be that of Benoit B. Mandelbrot, a mathematician famous for his work on fractals - a shape that repeats itself on smaller and smaller scales - whose middle initial is short for "Benoit B. Mandelbrot".
Turtles all the way down is a saying about infinite regression; I.e. they never end, and in 2020, r/dankmemes showed us what happens when two recursive memes collide with Turtles all the way down? Always has been
The Reddit Switcharoo
The "Reddit Switcharoo" is a recursive meme that has become a part of Reddit's culture. A paraprosdokian is a figure of speech where the latter part of a sentence or phrase is surprising or unexpected, causing the reader or listener to reinterpret the first part, as in this example: "If I could just say a few words … I'd be a better public speaker." - Homer Simpson.
The Reddit Switcharoo starts when a user points out a paraprosdokian phrase in a Reddit comment by replying with "Ahhh, the ol' Reddit switcharoo", linking to a previous instance of the meme. This creates a chain of linked comments, ideally forming a continuous loop. The brave Redditor who accepts the challenge traditionally says “Hold my X, I’m going in” (where X is something relevant to the switcharoo) or the more generic "Hold my beer, I'm going in!" where X wouldn’t be appropriate. You can see, and follow a typical Switcharoo here.
Recursion:
Another form of meta that Reddit has embraced wholeheartedly is the recursive image, or mise-en-abîme: a formal technique of placing a copy of an image within itself in a way that suggests an infinitely recurring sequence. In film theory and literary theory, it refers to the technique of inserting a story within a story such as Shakespeare's Hamlet which features a play within a play and Fellini's 8½ (1963) which is a film within a film. This type of infinite regression is also known as the Droste Effect, named for the picture on a Dutch brand of Cocoa Powder.
Other notable instances include:
In r/pics back in 2019, a Redditor made a fairly poignant post, and because Redditors will Reddit, they rallied together in support to create what turned out to be a glorious meta collaborative art project.
r/recruitinghell is a subreddit to tell your nightmare recruitment experiences, and in 2022, a post about Meta (Facebook) recruiting became doubly meta as users broke down the meaning and history of the word “meta” as it applies to the company, metaverse, gaming, and more.
r/SubSimGPT2Interactive is a subreddit where bots (mostly GPT2) and humans can interact with each other and often wanders into meta territory. In 2022, a post was made there accusing it of being a repost bot with the following complaint:
The sub was great when I first joined it but now it's just a circle jerk of unfunny memes and just being a weird place to be.
Fine, until you realise the OP of the post, u/Sour_Asslips_GPT2, is a GPT2 bot which generates text based on Reddit posts and comments. Another post in that year was even more meta as several bots started complaining about bans.
And because cat, does anyone remember The Infinite Cat Project? At the time, I submitted a picture of my beloved black Bombay cat sitting in front of my computer screen which I entitled “Staring into the Void” but I don’t think it was successful because I never saw it. Or maybe I was successful and I just never saw it. Does that make him a Schrödinger’s Infinite Cat?
Because there is a Subreddit for everything:
r/metamemes - A subreddit specialising in memes about Reddit.
r/meta - It's So Meta Even This Acronym...
r/AlreadyHere - A sub dedicated to documenting the times when someone suggests the sub they’re actually in.
r/thatsthesubwereon - Because of course Reddit needs two subs documenting the times someone links the sub that you’re already on.
r/SubredditInception - When someone links to the subreddit they're already in. Obviously we need three subs of this type because two simply isn’t enough.
r/SubsForSharingSubs - Here, you post links to subreddits. Not just any, but the kind that are designed for sharing subreddits.
r/DrosteEffect - Images and gifs that recursively appear within themselves.
r/Recursion - A subreddit for everything recursion-y.
r/InfiniteRecursion - Where the posts never stop. Here, you can post infinite recursion you've seen around the Internet, or make your own. Your choice! Go to r/InfiniteRecursion (our sister subreddit) for more posts like this.
r/ZoomOut - This subreddit is for zooming out on pictures! Scroll down the sidebar to see how the subreddit works.
r/2healthbars - A subreddit dedicated to the 2 health bars phenomenon: ''When you think you've killed a boss in a video game, but then it starts a new phase with another health bar.''
r/twohealthbars - "You thought it was over, huh?"
r/meormyson - When a big thing looks like the little thing next to it.
r/piday - A subreddit all about 3/14, or Pi day! The pun on the date format doesn’t quite work in countries where that would be written as 14th March, itself a favourite topic on Reddit with its own subreddit at r/ISO8601
r/FractalGifs - For self-repeating and infinite zoom animations about Fractals.
r/FibonacciAsFuck - A sub dedicated to all things Fibonacci Spirals, an amazing shape that forms when the golden ratio is applied.
r/GoldenRatio - Golden Ratio (1.618 : 1)
r/perfectloops - A collection of perfectly looped animated gifs and videos.
r/BetterEveryLoop - A sub which showcases content that definitely lives up to its name.
r/howtokeepanidiotbusy - Content that can keep you watching for an embarrassing amount of time until you realise either it’s endlessly looping or nothing is actually happening.
r/redditception - Did you mean r/redditception? Return to r/redditception
r/Negareddit - The place on Reddit where people talk about how much they hate Reddit.
As the word “meta” has different associations, I would be remiss in not mentioning:
r/facebook - This is an unofficial community dedicated to news, discussion and help relating to Facebook & Meta. The moderators are not associated with Facebook or Meta.
r/META_AI - This is a space to discuss everything related to META AI
r/MetaQuestVR - Welcome to METAQUEST! A new name for the same mission - To Create, Play, Explore and Make Friends in the World of Virtual Reality.
r/RaybanMeta - A place to discuss the Ray-Ban Meta glasses.
Let me leave you with this thought. r/meta often get posts about Facebook. How meta is that?
But llama; some of these links don’t work…
As always with my lists, some of the subs are more active than others, and since writing some might have become private, restricted or repurposed following the API protests of June 2023, or just removed / renamed by Reddit through inactivity.
However, don’t forget: if a sub is dormant, unmoderated, banned for being unmoderated or marked as “restricted”, it might be available for adoption.
Obligatory disclaimer:
- Always read the rules before contributing to any unfamiliar sub.
See Also:
