Star Trek stigmatised

[Temis the Vorta]

In America, Star Trek is mainstream enough now (thanks to JJ Abrams) that it's not really a stigma. More just some big, boring mass culture thing, like The Hunger Games that the common herd likes for a while, and then moves on to something else, and then back to it when it gets shoved in their faces again.

Oh, you're also fine if ST 2009 is the only trek you like. Then you're considered cool, Macchio even.

How is liking a top-ten blockbuster "cool"? It's not unique enough to be cool (or to be stigmatized - it's just there.)

If you want to be cool, you have to be a Browncoat.

I've never noticed any difference in between a fan of a TV show vs sports fan. People talked a lot about Lost without anyone thinking it was particularly nerdy or dumb. Being a fan of Mad Men or Game of Thrones seems at least vaguely cool, certainly not stigmitized. Ditto for The Walking Dead, although the "in" thing there seems to be to slam it (which I don't really get, I think it's a great show).

 

[M'Sharak]

You're alright in the U.S as long as you make it abundantly clear that you only like trek for space battles and to see Kirk get the girl.

And to whom should I have been making this abundantly clear? Do I contact them by phone? Email? Registered letter? It's as if I've suddenly learned that I'm several years delinquent and must rectify this immediately! Immediately!

Otherwise, if you take its vision of humanity seriously, you're definitely stigmatized as a 'socialist' or someone who needs to 'get a life'.

The only people who'd ever mistake me for a socialist are the same ones who think everyone but them is a socialist and won't be convinced otherwise. I think I'm fairly safe.

...

Oh, you're also fine if ST 2009 is the only trek you like. Then you're considered cool, Macchio even.

Ralph Macchio?

He wasn't even in that movie.

 

[trek_futurist]

IHow is liking a top-ten blockbuster "cool"? It's not unique enough to be cool (or to be stigmatized - it's just there.)

I guess I did a good job of concealing my comments behind sarcasm. Nevertheless, what I meant was that if you like the 'version of trek' that is anything but philosophical and intellectual, you are not stigmatized. But if you like former trek (especially TOS and TNG) and if you furthermore 'take it seriously' you are a burden upon yourself and your fellow man.

*sarcasm intended once again*

 

[Elias Vaughn]

Anyone who takes any work of fiction that seriously... well, I shouldn't say they deserve to be mocked, but it shouldn't be unexpected. Especially if, say, that person talks down about people who don't take the aforementioned work of fiction as seriously as the that person in this completely random and vague example does.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

You're alright in the U.S as long as you make it abundantly clear that you only like trek for space battles and to see Kirk get the girl.

And to whom should I have been making this abundantly clear? Do I contact them by phone? Email? Registered letter? It's as if I've suddenly learned that I'm several years delinquent and must rectify this immediately! Immediately!

I recommend you accost strangers in the street and inform them that you like Star Trek only for space battles and Kirk's sexcapades. I'm sure that won't come off as weird in the least.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

IHow is liking a top-ten blockbuster "cool"? It's not unique enough to be cool (or to be stigmatized - it's just there.)

I guess I did a good job of concealing my comments behind sarcasm. Nevertheless, what I meant was that if you like the 'version of trek' that is anything but philosophical and intellectual, you are not stigmatized. But if you like former trek (especially TOS and TNG) and if you furthermore 'take it seriously' you are a burden upon yourself and your fellow man.

*sarcasm intended once again*

So you were actually saying that liking Abrams movie isn't cool, and liking TOS and TNG is?

Or are you simply unaware of what the definition of "sarcasm" is?

 

[Greg Cox]

There's a fine line between "taking it seriously" and "taking it too seriously."

It's subtle distinction, but it matters . . . particularly when dealing with the outside world.

 

[nightwind1]

IHow is liking a top-ten blockbuster "cool"? It's not unique enough to be cool (or to be stigmatized - it's just there.)

I guess I did a good job of concealing my comments behind sarcasm. Nevertheless, what I meant was that if you like the 'version of trek' that is anything but philosophical and intellectual, you are not stigmatized. But if you like former trek (especially TOS and TNG) and if you furthermore 'take it seriously' you are a burden upon yourself and your fellow man.

*sarcasm intended once again*

So you were actually saying that liking Abrams movie isn't cool, and liking TOS and TNG is?

Or are you simply unaware of what the definition of "sarcasm" is?

You apparently have missed his entire history of ranting about how terrible Trek09 is and how anyone who claims to like it is not a REAL Trek fan.

It's his schtick. Kind of like You_Will_Fail. In fact, I think one of them is a sockpuppet of the other.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I don't think I've ever been teased about being a Star Trek fan, even when I worked with nothing but Star Wars fans. Most people don't really care.

 

[Greg Cox]

I wonder if this is more of an issue depending on how old you are. At my age, I don't feel particularly stigmatized for being a lifelong Trekkie, but, to be fair, I'm not in high school trying to get a date or something . . . .

 

[Gary7]

I find that it varies depending upon locale and groups. I've been around other people who appreciate Star Trek, from casual to dedicated watcher, and so anybody with an interest is not singled out. I've also been around others who have made quips about "Trekkies", and ribbed fellow office workers if they demonstrated an interest (like a screensaver on their work computer). And then there was the poor fool who once came to work in a full Starfleet uniform on Halloween with working props (he never lived it down, getting "hey Spock" frequently in the halls).

 

[marksound]

If we're talking about who is a real fan and who isn't ...

If you didn't watch TOS religiously in its first run, from 1966-69, you aren't a real Trekkie. And you never will be.

So there.

 

[Forbin]

I wonder if this is more of an issue depending on how old you are. At my age, I don't feel particularly stigmatized for being a lifelong Trekkie, but, to be fair, I'm not in high school trying to get a date or something . . . .

You can always show them a pay stub, and ask them if being a football fan pays as well.

 

[Nerys Myk]

I wonder if this is more of an issue depending on how old you are. At my age, I don't feel particularly stigmatized for being a lifelong Trekkie, but, to be fair, I'm not in high school trying to get a date or something . . . .

Heh, I used to take my dates to Star Trek movies.

 

[Greg Cox]

I wonder if this is more of an issue depending on how old you are. At my age, I don't feel particularly stigmatized for being a lifelong Trekkie, but, to be fair, I'm not in high school trying to get a date or something . . . .

Heh, I used to take my dates to Star Trek movies.

I got to admit, I saw an awful lot of teenage couples (and more than a few families) at Comic-Con a few years back.

So much for the ostracized virgin stereotype . . . .

 

[RandyS]

Not so much these days in the U.S. Ever since Bill Gates and Steve Jobs made being nerds cool, saying you like trek has become socially acceptable.

Not always, but yeah, people are more accepting of it nowdays.

 

[Herkimer Jitty]

Where I live, its no big deal, because science-fiction/fantasy, like video gaming, had been appropriated by youth/geek culture, which I live in a sea of.

And it is glorious.

You're alright in the U.S as long as you make it abundantly clear that you only like trek for space battles and to see Kirk get the girl.

Otherwise, if you take its vision of humanity seriously, you're definitely stigmatized as a 'socialist' or someone who needs to 'get a life'.

Oh, you're also fine if ST 2009 is the only trek you like. Then you're considered cool, Macchio even.

lol classic trek_futurist right there

 

[GSnail]

I think Star Trek is too big to be properly stigmatized anymore. A bunch of series, a zillion movies, books and comics and games and stuff, its just worked itself into the popular cuture so well that the 'fat nerd virgin' stereotype is more parody than what people actually think.

Or the trend could just be that people are liking sci-fi more. Were the earlier movies big hits with people outside the fandom like the new one is?

 

[Greg Cox]

Or the trend could just be that people are liking sci-fi more. Were the earlier movies big hits with people outside the fandom like the new one is?

ST IV, "the one with the whales," was probably the most popular with mainstream audiences.

In my experience, the average moviegoer had no idea that there were actually ten movies. They remembered Khan, they remembered Spock dying, they remembered the whales, and (maybe) they remembered "the one with the Borg," but that was about it . . . .

 

[david lowbridge]

I live in the UK, and yes ST has a huge stigma against it. My wife hated the idea of watching it, based on what her father had told her about the show. Then I one day had DS9 on when I was off for a day she didn't have and she came home, watched the last half an episode and said "this is great television". Now she is watching every single episode ever made of ST to catch up on it. and even tells her dad he needs to watch it before he comments on how rubbish it is.