This is the POINT of being Meta 

The subversion of clichés has long become a cliché. Being meta is only worthwhile when it's used to express a point beyond cynical, ironic navel gazing.

As Rick and Morty went on it just became "meta"' mostly by being deeply insecure about it's self, one half shitting on it's self for being unoriginal/dumb and the other half calling the audience out for wanting better. I'm not sure this even relates much to the broader concept of meta fiction really, as you basically point out here, but I think some of the push back against "meta" writing in R&M is people being bored of this pattern. I was anyway.

If media is cringing at the thought of engaging with itself, why should I engage with it? There are two types of meta humour. One that seeks to interrogate its baser functions out of intrigue, and one that only has baser functions and is insecure about it. *Rick and Morty is just lampshading, through characters with half-smirks and half-closed eyes.* To me, at least.

"Too meta" can be good. I had a slice of too-meta on my sandwich yesterday.

Catching up to this late but in my opinion the reason why Rick and Morty's meta stopped working was because it started to feel like the characters reality didn't matter to them when lots of shows break the fourth wall the reality of the world is still real to them but in Rick and Morty it sort of stopped feeling lkike the world mattered to the characters and if it doesn't matter to the characters why should it matter to us?

I was like "Eh don't know if I need to make this comment," when you said about 'the wrong stick' haha. For me, it's that it teased interesting plot, and then got annoyed at the audience for wanting to see that plot play out. And sorry, did the audience break into the studio and sneak the plot stuff in without your knowledge? I mean, I'm never one to say never about any approach to art, if it's your art you can do whatever you want with it. But doing that is a massive gamble, and not one that's paid off all that well in this situation I don't think. I thought it was fantastic at the beginning of S3 when they played Rick's backstory as "Of course that was a fake trick, screw you audience expectations." That backstory was my own theory, and even though it got pissed all over; I loved it, it felt like I'd engaged and got rewarded for it with a funny dig about how lazy that would be. Absolutely fair enough. Then a few seasons later, "Nah, that backstory was true actually, who cares?" And it just feels like the show is bored of itself. Idk, I think that's the real problem. The show feels bored of itself. Stop having 4th wall breaking talks about how you just want to have wacky adventures, and actually just do some wacky adventures if that's what you want the show to be!

I just realized I have a lot of channels with more subscribers in my sub box, but Stu’s was the one I instantly clicked on and had to watch first Keep it up, king 👑

For me the reason why I like DHMIS’ meta humor and why I dont like R&M’s is because to me the latter’s meta humor feels smug and to quote the family man like “it insists upon itself”. DHMIS when it references itself it tends to do it in a tongue in cheek way, I dont get the idea that the creators of that show love their own product enough to build entire episodes around how they write an episode. There are some points when DHMIS gets self indulgent but I also feel like its for the most part parodying the subject matter on-point. Rick & Morty stopped parodying sci-fi and began to parody itself Edit: Another thing is I feel like DHMIS while meta also doesnt extend its meta humor to the serious points of the storylines. The creators never make a joke during for example the Green Bird figuring out he doesnt want to be part of the show in the fifth short that is essentially turning to the audience and going “wow *burp* this is a pretty wacky situation. Not that it matters why would anyone care about what this all means?” Like if youre building up an ongoing storyline we’re meant to get invested in why also defuse tension in such a forced fashion?

7:08 You missed a golden opportunity to have the title card read "I AM SO SMRT". As such, my opinion of this video has gone down from "absolute perfection" to "...yeah, it's pretty good".

What you get from pressing keyboard number skips: 1, 1:39 - "all I needed to see of it." 2, 3:18 - "gritty realistic drama about a woman trapped in an awful marriage" 3, 4:57 - "honest here, that's all any tv show, movie, book series or video game wants." 4, 6:36 - "on the paradox of" 5, 8:15 - "news for a solid ten minutes" 6, 9:54 - "from the other place are almost like creator's surrogates" 7, 11:33 - "is were very aware of that" 8, 13:12 - "is are a valid tactic to engineer audience discussion" 9, 14:51 - "people try to lock onto meta fiction being a net negative" e.g. if you press 4 then 1, you get: ""on the paradox of all I needed to see of it."

Would love to see a full video dissecting twin peaks. Then again I can imagine that would be a very long video

There's a Neil Gaiman quote about writing criticism that I often think of. "Remember: when people tell you something's wrong or doesn't work for them, they're almost always right. When they tell you exactly what they think is wrong and how to fix it, they're almost always wrong." So in a way, I do believe that people are getting tired of Rick and Morty constantly always being meta. At least in the broad strokes meaning of the phrase. But trying to articulate what the exact problem is or why being "too meta" is a problem is always going to be a lot harder. The way I typically define the word in my head is that something meta = something being self-referential in some way. Rick and Morty isn't always self-referential to the show Rick and Morty, but it is often very referential to other works of fiction, as well as often being very self-aware of tropes used in either Sci-fi or whatever media property the show is parodying (I'd say Rick and Morty is more self-aware than meta, but maybe that's just two different ways of saying the same thing). So I imagine as the show has goes on (and people go online to talk and discuss the things they like and dislike) certain aspects of the show they like (being meta, Rick being an asshole, Morty going "aww geeze rick"), the things they originally loved started to become rote and grating over time. Combine that with the fact that the show has been going for 5 seasons now and the show's writing isn't able to capture the same excitement it originally did, I think the show is running out of creative steam and is starting to rely on what they think the audience thinks Rick and Morty is supposed to be.

I think the issue with the way metahumor and metafiction are used is that they’re often a lazy crutch for writers with no genuinely clever ideas to appear much more clever than they really are. Metafiction is an easy way to appear “smart”, because people perceive a writer being aware of the conventions of their genre and of fiction itself as a sign of intelligence, so you often get writers relying on it in a really cynical way. Metahumor in particular has its own problem where it gets used by writers who seem almost afraid of sincerity. When it’s inserted into stories that are meant to be dramatic, it undermines the audience’s investment in the story and characters by just saying that the entire thing is stupid and you shouldn’t care. Joss Whedon is really notorious for popularizing this style of metahumor and it reached critical mass with the box office dominance of Marvel movies (which are full of it). I think a lot of metafiction fatigue comes from this.

People hate Rick and Morty meta humor because it's oversaturated shitty meta humor complaining about basic story structure and show is basically saying "Fuck you for being invested in lore and character development" for a story it set up. Rick and Morty quality begin to decline in season 3 by trying to take a middle road between retconning things to a status quo and character development. If there is not supposed to be character development, then why did season 2 ended with Rick turning himself in? After seeing the ending of season 4 finally my thoughts where I'm not buying this emotional ending because the show did nothing with its emotional season 2 ending. If Rick and Morty doesn't want to make an overarching story, then why did it ended a season 1 episode with the plot twist an evil variant of Morty exist? Hating your audience for being invested for a story you created is petty and stupid. It's possible to make and episodic show without an overarching story, although Rick and Morty isn't good at being episodic either with oversaturating unfunny incest jokes. What made Chowder fourth wall meta humor comedy gold is that it didn't oversaturate the jokes and it doesn’t hate it's audience for watching it.

I don’t think Rick and Morty has become ‘too meta’ I think it’s meta jokes have started to come at the expense of the audience. For instance the tear left by evil morty between multiverses was set up as something big and important, as was the idea that Rick no longer had access to portal travel. But instead of continuing these they just remind you it exists and then unsatisfyingly end the threads early. Turning directly to the camera in some instances and declaring the audience is stupid for wanting these stories to play out when the whole point of the show is for whacky fun adventures. It’s not become ‘too meta’ some of my favourite media decodes ideas in their genres or from a comedic stand point make fun of themselves. I think the issue with Rick And Morty is that it’s meta jokes are no longer making fun of themselves they’re making fun of the audience.

I think The Simpsons moments you pointed out were specifically based on just how tacky the Simpsons merchandising bonanza was and how in your face it was. Not saying the point you made is wrong, but just considering how hard the writers worked to make it an intelligent comedy, to be faced with a merchandising blitz that flew in the very face of that ethos (with drek like The Simpsons Sing the Blues and Bart vs. the Space Mutants etc.) it's clear they were a bit annoyed by that and wanted to make fun of it. The Lisa Dream segment in Treehouse of Horror II is pretty much the writers making fun of how dumb and gaudy the merch specifically was, not the show.

With R&M nowadays i get the impression that the creators are just desperate to prove how clever and smart they are, aka so much smarter than their audience could ever be. Sad little boiz

Great video. I'm not personally tired of Rick & Morty, but I do get Meta-fatigue. I think it varies depending on the art or person, but and over-reliance on meta humour can easily cross the line of cute/clever, into total obnoxiousness. And as a result, you start to crave sincerity. (Moffat's run on Who is a good example IMO.) Like, I think there's a flip side to using meta to connect with the audience as you describe. The same way say, MARVEL does from time to time: "I've got a bow and arrow, none of this makes any sense." Lines like this tell the audience, "yeah, we know this is silly, accept it and have a good time". And in moderation it's fine. But over-do it, and it starts to seem like: A. You're insecurely trying to get ahead of any joke the audience might make. and B. You're too cool to care about what you're doing, so why should I care. I also think, in the case of Rick & Morty, there's an element of people preferring long-form stories as opposed to self-contained episodic ones, and the show often lamp-shades it's own relationship with it's arcing elements. (This is something I noticed a lot when watching Adventure Time with my friends. They couldn't stand being left hanging by the show's idiosyncratic tom-foolery style story telling.) I'm tired of them bringing it up, because I'm already on-board with episodic adventures, but if you're not, every time they draw attention to the fact they just want to be episodic, or dismiss something people really care about, it could come across as a slap in the face. And YMMV with slap in the face, playful or otherwise. That's just what I think anyway. EDIT: I think the Muppets are a great example of how to do meta well. No matter how self-aware they are, they never lose sight of sincerity under-pinning everything. They wear the fact that they're not real on their sleeves, and yet we love them anyway.

was very pleasantly surprised to see a mention of house of leaves in this video. would be lovely to have a video about that book some day potentially..? maybe about how/why it can’t be adapted into film (or if it can be) or just a straight recommendation review.

Personally, as someone who also enjoyed the Story Train episode, that episode’s sequel in the latest season is the one that finally made me drop the show for good, and I struggle to think of a better articulation for why that is beyond “too meta.” Futzing with, breaking down and analyzing conventions of the genre you’re in is great, but when an episode is just an unbroken 22 minute stream of self-reference and subtext-as-text-as-subtext, it stops being remotely engaging. There was a point somewhere in that episode where two characters launch immediately into a dialogue that’s all meta “this is what the writer’s room is like” prattling before one of the characters in question has even been properly *introduced.* At that point I had to stop and ask myself if I cared about what was going on at all, either in this episode or the show at large, and if the show was even interested in me caring in the first place. If any show exists that IS “too meta,” Rick & Morty is it.

7:03 truly a brain to rival Steven Moffat himself

7:10 your brain may be so smart but is it as smart as Steven Moffat? Was that a meta joke targeted at longtime viewers? It sure caused me to comment and engage with your content so that definitely makes your point.

I can’t wait for your Simpsons videos and hear what you have to say about. Personally while I can see what people mean by the golden years of the show I still l enjoy quite a lot of the later episodes but that might just be because I grew up with those episodes like how other people grew up with the golden years episodes. Oh btw good metafiction video, I use to like Rick and Morty for the metafiction but I just gave up after the dragon’s episode it was just weird! (And that’s coming from a DHMIS fan). Keep doing what your doing, the videos are great!

I do enjoy meta fiction, hell I play the Neptunia video games so I'm not one to bash on it. I think an issue I had was in the 2010s meta fiction was everywhere to the point even non meta franchises started adopting it at the pushing out of more serious stories which as the decade went on caused burn out on meta content which does have after oversaturation of any piece of media.

I really like this! My rule of thumb for meta fiction is that meta elements should never come at the expense of the story's quality. Take Scream: very meta, but still a good horror film in its own right, the meta elements enhance rather than detract the story and characters. Contrasted with some of the latter-day Rick and Morty episodes that to me read as the writers desperately trying to outsmart the story they're telling. Telling a lazy story and turning to the audience to say "this is bad, huh." Twin Peaks is such a cool example of creatively motivated, stylistic meta fiction! Looking forward to a Simpsons vid!

When people say something is 'Too meta' they mainly mean its done to death. Not in the sense that it is overused but rather that it absolutely breaks the boundary between work and audience. This breaks the audience suspension of disbelief in a work. Normally a 'good' metafiction does this in more subtle way. It doesn't have to spell out why something is meta, take your simpsons example. It works both in the context of the work and in a meta way because as you explained the joke is on simpsons ironically being a global phenomena while in the work it shows Marge's surprise over Homer's popularity. 4th wall breaks while more explicit are also like this, not necessarily breaking the pace of the show. They are also more so laughing alongside the audience at possibly contrived, tropey or rather cliche ideas making it fun and engaging. But besides just that it can give the audience a moment to think about why the character is giving their thoughts on a moment further engaging them to the work. So 'too meta' in such a context would be being to explicit thereby harpooning the suspension of disbelief out of the water and killing the mystique surrounding the world. But before I end this reply I think I'd like to bring up another point. The death of the author. You say that the author puppeteers the audience into believing they're the one in control.However while that may technically be the case the author isn't the one who determines what the audience feels towards there message or commentary. A good example is the game Metal Gear Solid 2. It uses several meta elements even indirectly adressing the surge of Metal Gear like stealth games of the time. It does this by changing up one key thing that made the original MGS well MGS. You play as Raiden who can easily be taken as weak. He is seen as whiney and not strong. It is done as a sudden swap from playing Solid Snake in the beginning. Essentially it is Hideo Kojima showing that you aren't snake. Raiden is essentially you, the player at first. You even keep your name on a dog tag. And well this essentially changes throughout the game. You learn more and more about Raiden. He isn't weak. He is traumatized by his time as a child soldier. He can't come to terms with his past. He is overlooked by the shadowy patriots who are the ones behind the American government. And essentially he's just another pawn. It distinguishes you. You are the one controlling him. You are the one leading him to a shallow victory. And at the end of the game there is a great moment where he throws away the dog tag and declares that he doesn't know who it belonged to. It is him coming into his own as a person. He stops idolizing the fantasy of playing as Solid Snake. He is free to be who he wishes to be. And that is the ultimate message of the game. So how does the death of the author apply here? Well in my first playthrough I hadn't played the original MGS, so I chose the setting for people who haven't. I didn't play the prologue with Solid Snake. So now a story of Raiden becoming his own person transforms into an experience of proving his worth and not being hindered by those who shadow him. It makes the ultimate message that he is free all that more poignant as after all the plot twists he is able to attain some form of closure. And this is what the death of the author is really, interpreting the same message and story in a different unintended way because of your experiences. Anyway sorry if this was a bit too long. I was just trying to add fire to this conversation since I honestly agree with your video and I am very interested with this discussion. Thank you if you read all this.

I remember seeing a comment criticising Rick and Morty around series 4 or 5 which has stuck with me for some reason, using this line from Bojack Horseman: “You can't keep doing shitty things, and then feel bad about yourself like that makes it okay! You need to be better!” It summed up my problems with that era of the show well. Not "too meta", per se, but constantly using meta-ness as a crutch to deflect any criticism. Like it justified any naff plotline with "well, it's meant to be bad, what did you expect?". I feel like the last two series of Community were similarly meta - very conscious of being well past the show's peak - but it was capable of being genuinely sweet and sincere a lot of the time. Whereas Rick and Morty just covered itself in layers and layers of ironic detachment to the point where I just never bothered with the last series. If you don't care, why should I?

the thing with rick and morty is that the meta jokes were mostly complaining about their audience expecting too much of them? and that's all the show ended up being. there didn't feel like there was anything clever about that it just felt like them complaining

A show i'd really love you to check out is Camp Camp! it's a lot better and more mature than other adult cartoons. It isn't afraid to be crass or out there but there's a certain amount of restraint they have. It never goes too far. That, and it makes time to actually have some genuine heart. Season 1 is like season 1 of Steven Universe in a sense that theirs bits of story that becomes more and more apparent as the series progresses, its story, characters and hidden lore so so interesting and it’s filled with mystery, epic story arks and emotional moments that I’d seriously call it one of the best animated shows ever made, too bad it’s criminally underrated, not many people are all that aware of it, despite is having a fandom that adores it.

I've never liked Animaniacs (at least not the Warner siblings scenes), even when it was on originally in my childhood. Part of the reason has always been - though I couldn't explain it this way at the time - that it expects you to find certain things funny purely because they're meta. "Too meta" might be a lazy attempt to say "too reliant on hoping meta implies amusing", which might be a legitimate criticism of something even if nothing is ever literally too meta.

Big brain Stu, but it's no where near as big as Steven Moffat's massive massive brain!

I miss sincerely in stories. I miss characters being distinct and nuanced instead being the same writer self-insert. Edit: I’m sick of smug writers trying and failing to ‘outsmart’ the audience instead of following through on established plot points (plot points nobody forced them to write in the first place regardless of how much whine about it after the fact). It just reeks of audience contempt and insecurity.

I liked that dog you have at the start of the vid, he looks like Nev the bear

I didn’t expect Stu to have watched it or to mention it but it should be a crime to discuss great metafiction without bringing up The Amazing World of Gumball! I’d highly recommend it, it does the Adventure Time thing of starting out like just another kids cartoon in season 1, elevating its comedy and hinting at more stuff in season 2 (lore in AT’s case and a meta-narrative in Gumball’s case, and I really do mean massively upping the comedy) and then once it gets going, it REALLY gets going! Gumball seasons 2-5 and a bunch of season 6 episodes are honestly up there with classic Simpsons and classic SpongeBob as one of the greatest, funniest and most creative cartoons of all time.

Another great example is Hikounin Sentai Akibaranger (You can probably find a retrospective video about it on youtube)

Stu currious what you think of how Tolkien claimed that his books were just tales of earth's past that he found and translated into English? Mearly a tool to make the world feel real, or any different attempt at metafiction?

I've never really thought of fourth wall breaking soliloquies as inherently meta. Talking straight to the audience is just a way of communicating what's going on in the story. Like, in most cases it's not functionally any different from the non-fourth wall breaking device of overdubbing lines in an echoey voice to imply we're hearing a character's thoughts.

It’s all the fetish shit that really grinds my gears.

I just wanna add to discussion but I've watch many videos about problems with rick and morty and i believe your looking at only one part of the argument and not seeing the whole picture Cartoonshi and ls mark i believe made the best points but problem will the rick and morty is oversaturation and being hypocritical about itself as pointed with out pickle rick it rather tell you the punchline and not let you think about the punchline which outside of the show For example people mention about summer peeing being brought up but there no set up,no conclusion is just summer pee = funny? And after season 3 is incest jokes Which again not really a set up or pay off and just feels like a gross out joke that overstayed is welcome and starts to feel like someone fetish idea they kept sneaking in as if they actually want this to actually be a thing (resulting the giant incest baby) This has happened once on robot chicken as the crew has a joke where a unicorn will fight a werewolf which pissed off tom as he said he will fire someone who dose even mentions werewolfs or unicorns but they finally had a excuse to have a unicorn and werewolf fight but that wqs behind the scenes audience didn't know a 5 second scene was a inside joke. But when each approved script features this outside joke you question and a lil concern why this happens and gets a bit creepy especially for a teen character to say it over and over. This isn't the only problem as you have reference humor which can get so boring especially that 80s trope (where a entire ep is just "did you know 80s were cool" jokes with Rubik cubes and more but unlike some shows the actor for rick and morty thinks just saying it is just the punchline with no build up. Take shows like who's line is it anyways where you have improv comedys where anything can happen though the creative minds of 4 Jokester but the voice actor is the 5th who don't understand the game show and just says "pokemone...cheese...the dominos are a pizza place" with no actual flow like a ai who just says random words and assumes is some language a country could understand. Take the game high on life which is by the rick and morty creators. That game had a huge problem with is improve as it often just saying stuff without saying stuff For example the elevator scene where the gun just says the elevator is basically like anime cause anime has elevators and apparently is relevant cause anime exists in space. Now how exactly is that a joke? Is it cause anime exists? Is it cause aliens have anime? Is it funny cause he just listed stuff you might of watched cause you can relate cause he said that show? Is it a joke if i just said "mario bros" cause i just said a reference? That's the problem they say something.....but that something wasn't a joke is just saying stuff and expecting that one guy in audience to exhale from his nose like a "hm" And 5 seasons expecting just "hm" by saying random stuff is what rick and morty has become. Ever since pickle rick became popular cause is a two worded meme they think more of just words will work. Giant sperm. incest baby. Slut dragons and so on and so on add that to rick basically being overly powered making the serious moments well.... pointless cause he basically like a fan oc who can't be hurt unless is for lazy dramatic effects. Also another point cartoonshi mentioned was one the creators brought up in a behind the scenes about "the heros journey" how the adventures they go on circle back and they learn something new which characters like luke Skywalker went on and morty technically went on but now they mock the journey and being like them artistic writers who go "YOU JUST DON'T GET IT" cause we aren't "big brained" by there super genius But to out it short is not just the meta jokes that they dislike but is other factors from the characters,the jokes and more from mocking is audience for even liking anything about the show to even saying to itself "your don't get it cause your not me" idea

13:06 .... Question Stu. Is that Rob Shearman? Writer of such brilliant books as "Tiny Deaths" and "Love Songs for the Shy and Cynical"?..... Also, have you read "We All Hear Stories in the Dark" because I'm curious if you have and what experience you had with that one because the people who HAVE read it have all had different experiences with it.

This was a really good analysis on why metafiction is what it is and how it can be used. Also, I don't know if if this is an example of metafiction, but I feel like Monty Python is subversive in its style of comedy, and that it kinda breaks the mold of a traditional comedy, in that it's very absurdist. Also, how's your book about a guy stuck in a country that he's never heard of before going?

The Sopranos has also alot of Moments or Story Threads which weren‘t resolved and i doesn‘t Make the Show bad, because like you said it generates Discussion. Also Stu, have you watched Sopranos? (Please do it, you won‘t regret it.)

I enjoy your more sociological approach to literary / televisual criticism here Stu. If I can call it a sociological approach. There’s probably a more accurate term somewhere but it escapes me at present. I did not expect this video to touch on death of the author and audience engagement. I really should have, but I didn’t. Point is, this is a unique perspective on the purposes of meta fiction, and I don’t find that talked about nearly enough, so thanks. I also applaud your restraint in not making metafictional jokes in your metafictional video essay. But now that I think about it, the fact you didn’t make any metafictional jokes feels like a metafictional joke. And now I’ve broken my brain, so please excuse me.

9:38 With that picture, you just made me get a Simpsons joke.

As someone who's currently watching Gintama, an anime pretty much famous for its meta humor, with entire episodes just showing you a still image with the characters explaining to you that they've blown their budget and are worried/glad about the ratings the show received recently, how the producer is probably going to be angry about what they are doing right now, etc. I think you're completely right, meta humor in itself is not the issue, because I've dropped Rick&Morty but I'm thoroughly engaged in Gintama some 100 episodes in, and I really can't say that Gintama is any less meta than Rick&Morty would be.

My favorite piece of meta-media is the DanganronpaV3 game. l'll cut right to the chase, so if you are someone who's reading this but doesnt wanna know the ending of the game,, here's your opportunity to stop reading. Okay so basically the entire series revolves around locking ~15 high school students in a situation where they can only leave if they can succesfully kill someone without getting caught. There's a student-trial to figure out who-dunnit, and if the real killer gets caught (which of course always happens in the end), there's a over-the-top assassination based on that student's talents/hobbies. Now the creator originally wanted to end the franchise with the release of two main games, a spin-off game and an anime-season,, but the demand for more games and more gruesome spectacle remained for years after the finale. At some point the creator released danganronpaV3, which imo was a game where the creator said "Okay l'm gonna do what you want a deliver the most creative cases and most interesting/involved characters, but in the climax l'm going to throw it all back in your face!". It turns out that this is actually the 53rd season of danganronpa in-universe, and the last few remaining students at some point have to start begging the "in-universe" audience to stop requesting more senseless spectacle murders, with the host/mastermind smugly announcing that danganronpa will never end since humanity's desire for despair will never truly let up. At which point they also reveal that all earlier main-games were actually in-universe fiction just like the final game, and they explicitly rub it in that all the story-lines the fans loved were made just to wring out more drama/despair, and was never more than that. The game ends with the remaining students trying to convince the audience that "fiction or not, their live is real to them and no-one should feel entitled to force them into killing-games for their own perverse enjoyment" As you can guess, the whole finale of that game was pretty controversial, but l never felt a more direct connection with the creator of a game, and l will always remember it for that.

People are fickle, you only get a trope being popular for so long before they get bored and search for their next dopamine hit. The super hero genre has taken a hit too for the same reason. People are calling SH movies shit that are genuinely good, they're also calling ones shit that are genuinely shit too but they can't seem to tell the difference between "it's bad" and "I'm bored of this genre and need a break"

...and then I realise half your examples are some of my favourite anything... Yup. Gosh I love meta

When it comes to Rick and morty a lot seems like repetitive jokes and some of them feel pointless and lazy, especially outside of the show stuff, like ads and games, where they're aware but that's the whole joke. Personally I was done with the show after two or three seasons, it's a show that got old very quickly for me, there's really only so much you can get out of drunk old smart man takes stupid young kid on adventures that are twisted inappropriate versions of other media, that and the fandom just became the most annoying thing since the star wars fandom. Part of my dislike is that I tend to end up liking comedies that have a short run, like IT crowd, they never overstay their welcome or overuse a joke or get predictable (which Rick and morty has, even when it's being unpredictable I'm not shocked or surprised), to me a good comedy comes along tells a good story with some great characters and jokes and then leaves before it gets old, Rick and morty has done the simpsons, south park, family guy, etc and just kept on going way beyond the point it should have.

7:04 objectively

I never thought I'd see Doki Doki Literature Club on your channel. It feels weird seeing something anime invade the sarcastic cynical British TV sphere

I'm probably in the minority of this point of view. One of my biggest gripes for a long time that a phrase like "too meta" and it's use is that there's a majority of people who throw the words around to their own meaning and it becomes too fluid to have any particular definition. It's kind of like watching a real life version of "The Smurfs" using the word smurf.

When they say too meta, they mean too meta for its own good They’ve tried to outsmart their audience so much that the entire show is just subversion without substance I never really liked it though so grain of salt

Being "too meta" means that it got to the point where it breaks the imersion in the story the viewer has. Don't hug me I am scared and the train episode never really break the imersion, the viewer is rooting for the story to go. Lines like they put in the last citadel episode about evil morty being evil and Rick's wife dying, take the viewer away from the expirience because why should we care about the story if the characters don't care about their story. The Gumball episode "The money" is the most meta episode you could have, The Watersons refuse to sell out and their animation budgets gets cheaper and cheaper deconstructiong the whole show step by step. But the characters don't say "Not that serious next week is everything back to the status quo", they run for their lifes, the things happening to them are important to them, it got stakes as high as every other episode that is non meta if not more. The viewer is imersed and interested. If you want to break the imersion do it at the end, that's the point where it doesn't matter "100 episodes Rick and Morty" Team Rockets "Why didn't we thouht of this sooner? Because we had to fill 11 minutes." Does not lower the stakes for the heros and doesn't make any scenes pointless. If they write something like "We could do that. No we can't do that yet, we still have to fill 11 minutes" at the start or the middle of an episode than the viewer knows that the next scenes are pointless because it's not even important to the characters.

My favourite meta joke has gotta be the doctor in hell bent: "I'm nothing without an audience..."

its just longevity, like your example of the simpsons shows eventually run out of decent ideas

So it's ok to skip Rick and Morty then?

your brain is giving Steven Moffat's a run for its money

The cure to too much meta fiction is Bertolt Brecht. He actively made his audience know they were watching a play. There was to be no suspension of disbelief.

Dude I hated Human CentiPad so much. The stuff with cartman was funny but everything with Stan was gross and unfunny.

Nce

I'd say more people talk about "Rick and Morty" than "Don't Hug Me I'm Scared" because people have ACTUALLY HEARD OF "Rick and Morty". Seriously, I didn't know about that show until this video. (Also, I've never watched R&M.)