Here, meta is used to describe that the joke explicitly talks about other jokes, a usage similar to the words metadata (data about data), metatheatrics (a play within a play as in Hamlet) and metafiction.

Aristophanes, whose plays form the only remaining fragments of Old Comedy, used fantastical plots, grotesque and inhuman masks and status reversals of characters to slander prominent politicians and court his audience's approval.

[2] Douglas Hofstadter wrote several books on the subject of self-reference;[3][4] the term meta has come to be used, particularly in art, to refer to something that is self-referential.

A finite number: one to perform the task and the remainder to act in a manner stereotypical of the group in question.

For example, here are a few subversions of the standard bar joke format: A dyslexic man walks into a bra.

[10]Three blind mice walk into a bar, but they are unaware of their surroundings so to derive humour from it would be exploitative.

"[12] The process of being a humorist is also the subject of meta-jokes; for example, on an episode of QI, Jimmy Carr made the comment, "When I told them I wanted to be a comedian, they laughed.

[13] Fumblerules are stylistic guidelines, presented such that the phrasing of the rule itself constitutes an infraction.

"[16][17] Tom Stoppard's anti-limerick from Travesties: A performative poet of Hibernia Rhymed himself into a hernia He became quite adept At this practice, except For the occasional non-sequitur.