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This Story Is So 'Meta'
This Story Is So 'Meta' Get it?
Why has 'meta' become a catch-all adjective for a culture that's increasingly self-referential, self-conscious, and self-parodying? Linguist Ben Zimmer says we're living in truly meta times. All Things Considered by NPR Staff Play

A couple weeks ago, weekends on All Things Considered host Guy Raz sent an email to Ben Zimmer, a language columnist at the Boston Globe.

"Ben," he wrote, "Every 20-something on my staff uses the word 'meta' all the time ? as in 'That's so meta.' Did I miss something?"

Zimmer responded with a 400-word mini-essay affirming that, yes, "meta" has indeed been working its way to more popular usage over the last decade or so.

"Everything in the culture, it seems, can instantly become self-referential, self-conscious, and self-parodying, increasingly driven by the frenzied feedback loop of social networking and electronic communication," Zimmer wrote. "Your young staffers take all of this for granted."

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