MickeyFriendly Fanatics
I was talking to an old friend from high school the other day, a fellow sci fi fan, and the discussion came around to modern sci fi. I mentioned how the producers of Enterprise often made no attempt to make the show believable (example cited was a group of pirates knock out almost the entire crew, scavenge the ship for whatever parts they can get (one "comedic" scene was one of the pirates randomly ripping out cables from the warp core), planning to sell the crew at a slave market... and the CO's response is to simply let them go!). My friend just looked at me, amazed that I had even bothered with the later Star Trek spin-offs.
Granted he had a point. Next Generation was the first weekly Trek after a long draught and Patrick Stewart brought a real sense of dignity and power to the role. Deep Space Nine took a grittier, more realistic look at the 24th Century than the others in the franchise... but what was my excuse for watching Voyager and Enterprise, both of which managed to convey right from their pilots that the producers simply didn't care about anything but churning out another hour of generic Star Trek every week?
Hi; my name is Francis, and I'm a Trekkie.
I'm not the stereotypical lifeless nerd: I date, I'm not a virgin, and except for a couple or three Halloweens I've never gone out in public in a Star Fleet uniform. I've even managed to offend some of my Trekkie brethren, pointing out Captain Janeway's mental instabilities, or comparing how well some shows like Babylon 5 or especially Galactica manage to do sci fi right.
How did the stereotype start? It was already a cliche long before Shatner's "Get a life!" skit on Saturday Night Live. In part I think the kids who grew up watching Star Trek were very comfortable with the idea of computers and other advanced technology; when something new comes along our attitude is "Of course I can learn how to do that!" Scotty wouldn't shy away from some new technological development, and I certainly won't either. I imagine it must have burned some people, to wrestle with a tech problem for days and weeks, and then some kid comes in, taps four keys and suddenly everything works.
Then, there was the internet. The early versions of it took some amount of technical skill (and almost infinite patience) to use, and of course the population with such skills were somewhat skewed towards sci fi fans. What genre were the last five movies where you saw people waiting in line for four or more hours? While sci fi fandom are by no means all Star Trek fans, they do tend to be far more tolerant towards the subset that society in general.
The internet quickly allowed Trekkies to make contact with similar life forms- no small matter, since for many of us the subject usually doesn't come up in casual conversation. On a bulletin board dedicated to the subject one can assume at least 90% of the participants are fans (the other ten percent are people who drop in to flame people for discussing a topic the flamers have no interest in- check almost any Usenet group and you'll see what I mean). Of course, now we have web sites (fan and pro) for virtually every TV show now or ever running. Don't worry, though, more storage and bandwidth is constantly being added to keep the porn flowing.
So yes, some folk still think they're insulting me to call me a Trekkie. The last guy who did literally destroyed his car axle running on a flat tire to keep from missing a Chicago Bears football game, and he actually goes into mourning for two weeks after the Super Bowl. We all of us have our passions, and as long as they don't lead to self-destruction (or worse), just find a party that looks like your kind of party and revel in it with the rest of the fans.
Granted he had a point. Next Generation was the first weekly Trek after a long draught and Patrick Stewart brought a real sense of dignity and power to the role. Deep Space Nine took a grittier, more realistic look at the 24th Century than the others in the franchise... but what was my excuse for watching Voyager and Enterprise, both of which managed to convey right from their pilots that the producers simply didn't care about anything but churning out another hour of generic Star Trek every week?
Hi; my name is Francis, and I'm a Trekkie.
I'm not the stereotypical lifeless nerd: I date, I'm not a virgin, and except for a couple or three Halloweens I've never gone out in public in a Star Fleet uniform. I've even managed to offend some of my Trekkie brethren, pointing out Captain Janeway's mental instabilities, or comparing how well some shows like Babylon 5 or especially Galactica manage to do sci fi right.
How did the stereotype start? It was already a cliche long before Shatner's "Get a life!" skit on Saturday Night Live. In part I think the kids who grew up watching Star Trek were very comfortable with the idea of computers and other advanced technology; when something new comes along our attitude is "Of course I can learn how to do that!" Scotty wouldn't shy away from some new technological development, and I certainly won't either. I imagine it must have burned some people, to wrestle with a tech problem for days and weeks, and then some kid comes in, taps four keys and suddenly everything works.
Then, there was the internet. The early versions of it took some amount of technical skill (and almost infinite patience) to use, and of course the population with such skills were somewhat skewed towards sci fi fans. What genre were the last five movies where you saw people waiting in line for four or more hours? While sci fi fandom are by no means all Star Trek fans, they do tend to be far more tolerant towards the subset that society in general.
The internet quickly allowed Trekkies to make contact with similar life forms- no small matter, since for many of us the subject usually doesn't come up in casual conversation. On a bulletin board dedicated to the subject one can assume at least 90% of the participants are fans (the other ten percent are people who drop in to flame people for discussing a topic the flamers have no interest in- check almost any Usenet group and you'll see what I mean). Of course, now we have web sites (fan and pro) for virtually every TV show now or ever running. Don't worry, though, more storage and bandwidth is constantly being added to keep the porn flowing.
So yes, some folk still think they're insulting me to call me a Trekkie. The last guy who did literally destroyed his car axle running on a flat tire to keep from missing a Chicago Bears football game, and he actually goes into mourning for two weeks after the Super Bowl. We all of us have our passions, and as long as they don't lead to self-destruction (or worse), just find a party that looks like your kind of party and revel in it with the rest of the fans.
