Problem is for a long time the heaviest trekkies, the really visible ones, were usually not about the idealism at all.
For every quiet idealist who dreams of a better future there’s a loud closet fascist who only sees the uniforms, a rigid militarized society with clear chains of authority, a Vulcan philosophy where cold logic overrides empathy, and where the advanced humans swashbuckle about the universe showing the natives their place.
It’s getting better now but back in the day Trek fandom was rough and it’s taking a lot to shake the image.
Dude, what? I’ve never heard, and I’m guessing most people haven’t heard, of the Trek fandom being seen as fascist or zealous. Especially not the ‘heaviest Trekkies’. Are there some who are like that? Absolutely. I’ve met a fair few through Elite Dangerous, as sad as that is, but it’s certainly not the majority. Definitely not enough to have colored the entire movement that way. ESPECIALLY when the major Trek cast constantly push the idealism.
The rest of us are hearing this for the first time.
Not me, I grew up with one of those people and he was awful. And because he was the only Trekkie in the whole town, pretty much everyone I grew up with has a terrible opinion of star trek and its fans. I bet a lot of the negative perception of the show comes from people like that. People like that are not that common, but neither are outspoken star trek fans in general, so most people probably have a pretty equal chance of meeting either type of fan.
So you had a bad experience with one man and then decided to paint everyone who liked the show with the same brush. You and your entire generation. From one dude?
That says everything about you and nothing about the fandom. There are assholes everywhere but one man is not representative of the fandom and if you believe that he is then that’s on you for judging entire groups of people based off of their actions.
Dude was an asshole but I’m honestly not sure if a douchebag fan is worse or someone who is so willing to color their opinions of entire groups of people/media because of their interactions with a single person.
If you know only one person who watches a specific show and they are awful human beings, then it is kind of natural to assume the show is awful as well and attracts awful people.
Your characterization is simply untrue. Your personal experience may have led you to believe that but I take great offense at you coloring an entire fandom with a crayon that isn’t even in their box. Also heaviest and most vocal also is clearly untrue considering the heaviest and most vocal trekkies push the inspiring aspects of the world. You also don’t get to say that a fandom is toxic when openly admitting that the majority were not part of what you claim.
Your personal experiences are not universal. It is a new observation. Frankly I’m not a huge fan of you using such enormously wide brush strokes to paint an entire fandom as toxic that you know nothing about.
I’ve always been pathologically unwilling to be part of a community. I miss out on a lot, I’m sure. It’s not a healthy way to be, and I’m not saying it’s a good thing.
It’s just that I’m into things like anime and video games and all that nerd shit. Every community has Those People that I don’t want to be associated with. They aren’t even the majority, but when a person who doesn’t know much about anime hears “anime lover” they think of a dude doing a Naruto run in public. When they hear “Star Trek” they think of the comic book guy from Simpsons. Etc.
It’s rare to find a community that doesn’t corrupt the original itent it was built around. Look at organized religion. Doesn’t speak well to humanity in general I’m afraid.
Not even so much that, I just think at a certain critical mass the law of averages kicks in and you just kind of get… the status quo. Like, a good share of people are decent, another good share are so-so, another good share are kind of nasty. So, put all that together and you get something that looks a lot like humanity in general: always just slightly disappointing.
Problem is for a long time the heaviest trekkies, the really visible ones, were usually not about the idealism at all.
For every quiet idealist who dreams of a better future there’s a loud closet fascist who only sees the uniforms, a rigid militarized society with clear chains of authority, a Vulcan philosophy where cold logic overrides empathy, and where the advanced humans swashbuckle about the universe showing the natives their place.
It’s getting better now but back in the day Trek fandom was rough and it’s taking a lot to shake the image.
Dude, what? I’ve never heard, and I’m guessing most people haven’t heard, of the Trek fandom being seen as fascist or zealous. Especially not the ‘heaviest Trekkies’. Are there some who are like that? Absolutely. I’ve met a fair few through Elite Dangerous, as sad as that is, but it’s certainly not the majority. Definitely not enough to have colored the entire movement that way. ESPECIALLY when the major Trek cast constantly push the idealism.
Not me, I grew up with one of those people and he was awful. And because he was the only Trekkie in the whole town, pretty much everyone I grew up with has a terrible opinion of star trek and its fans. I bet a lot of the negative perception of the show comes from people like that. People like that are not that common, but neither are outspoken star trek fans in general, so most people probably have a pretty equal chance of meeting either type of fan.
So you had a bad experience with one man and then decided to paint everyone who liked the show with the same brush. You and your entire generation. From one dude?
That says everything about you and nothing about the fandom. There are assholes everywhere but one man is not representative of the fandom and if you believe that he is then that’s on you for judging entire groups of people based off of their actions.
Dude was an asshole but I’m honestly not sure if a douchebag fan is worse or someone who is so willing to color their opinions of entire groups of people/media because of their interactions with a single person.
If you know only one person who watches a specific show and they are awful human beings, then it is kind of natural to assume the show is awful as well and attracts awful people.
I never said it was the majority, I said the heaviest most vocal ones.
These people made Star Trek the original toxic fandom, it’s not a new observation.
Your characterization is simply untrue. Your personal experience may have led you to believe that but I take great offense at you coloring an entire fandom with a crayon that isn’t even in their box. Also heaviest and most vocal also is clearly untrue considering the heaviest and most vocal trekkies push the inspiring aspects of the world. You also don’t get to say that a fandom is toxic when openly admitting that the majority were not part of what you claim.
Your personal experiences are not universal. It is a new observation. Frankly I’m not a huge fan of you using such enormously wide brush strokes to paint an entire fandom as toxic that you know nothing about.
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I’ve always been pathologically unwilling to be part of a community. I miss out on a lot, I’m sure. It’s not a healthy way to be, and I’m not saying it’s a good thing.
It’s just that I’m into things like anime and video games and all that nerd shit. Every community has Those People that I don’t want to be associated with. They aren’t even the majority, but when a person who doesn’t know much about anime hears “anime lover” they think of a dude doing a Naruto run in public. When they hear “Star Trek” they think of the comic book guy from Simpsons. Etc.
I know exactly what you mean. I’ve always wanted to know why our hobbies have the worst people in it.
All hobbies have the worst people in it. I realized one day, that they are everywhere, not just in our hobbies.
It’s rare to find a community that doesn’t corrupt the original itent it was built around. Look at organized religion. Doesn’t speak well to humanity in general I’m afraid.
The bigger the community, the more attractive it gets for the kind of people who just want to see the world burn.
Not even so much that, I just think at a certain critical mass the law of averages kicks in and you just kind of get… the status quo. Like, a good share of people are decent, another good share are so-so, another good share are kind of nasty. So, put all that together and you get something that looks a lot like humanity in general: always just slightly disappointing.