Every single large server in this federation has at least one Star Trek community. There is even an entire server dedicated to Star Trek.
Not only that, these communities are some of the most active I've ever seen. There is no other franchise I know of that dominates the federation as much as Star Trek does.
So, what's the correlation with Lemmy and Star Trek? Why not other sci-fi series? Please, are there any connections?? Is this all coincidental?
The Star Trek community has been going strong for nearly 60 years for a reason - Star Trek rocks.
When it started in the 60s (and continued especially strong with TNG in the 80s), it was unique in depicting a hopeful look at how things could be rather than a reflection of how things are, differing from how most shows do social commentary. It's refreshing.
Star Trek is attractive to people who want to see a world where people work together toward great things in a post-scarcity utopia, with current day conversations of race, nationality, sex, gender, etc. being so far in the rear-view mirror that they're non-issues. Plus cool technology. I think that appeals to the Lemmy crowd.
Another key point I feel is often overlooked about Star Trek is the "Gulliver's Travels" component of (at least pre-Kelvin) Star Trek. Every show, every race was secretly a fun-house-like caricature of humanity's worst traits, with the humans of the show demonstrating growth past that point. You laugh at or shirk away from them, but really it's modern humanity that is being depicted (Ferengi as capitalists, Klingons as warmongers, Romulans as subversives, etc.) And then we see what we could be, the hope that you talked about, in future humanity
It seems like such a creative way to do social commentary. We get to see our present failings in aliens, and then contrast it with how the crew (future humanity) carries themselves. Sometimes it's very clunky and heavy handed (like that TOS episode with the half-white/half-black aliens), but it's still good. My favorites are every time Picard monologues about their values to an alien race in TNG.
Even if you already share the values, it's fascinating to hear them laid out so clearly.
It helps that Stewart is such a fantastic monologist. It's like hearing something complex about biology or ecology from David Attenborough. They both have such an effortless ability to communicate difficult subjects.
Do you include Wesley as an alien in that instance? Because that monologue is solid.
I really love it when it's especially heavy handed. That's my shit.
That's very interesting. I think you've sold me on watching the show.
The original series is very 1960s and I wouldn't recommend for a jumping in point. I'd go with next Gen for that, it's the quintessential trek more so than the original having had 3 spinoffs in the 90s and defining most of the canon. Here's the issue though, the first 2 seasons of tng really suck. Like maybe the worst 2 seasons of the whole franchise. I'd check out some best of lists for those seasons and maybe sprinkle a couple random ones in, they did 26 hour long episodes per season and there are some amazing clunkers there, bad episodes are part of trek and you've gotta learn to enjoy them, but those first 2 seasons are rough.
But if you hang in there, you get rewarded with a Riker's Beard
To me, Trek is a mash of three great communities, each nerdy in their own way:
- Science-fiction, specifically optimistic mid-century science fiction.
- Theatre / Drama
- Revolutionary Socialism
This article scratches the surface of it.
Thank you for the article. I'll need to look more into this in the future.
I think it's nerds. /s
I think a lot of the lemmy userbase are at least somewhat techy (also see the Linux communities), and a lot of techy people like Star Trek.
The top voted posts of the last week are programmer humor jokes that have 400+ upvotes but like 4 comments its weird why don't yall talk
We may never have a good answer for why the gay nerdy communists love the colorful scifi communist space adventures
there is also a lot of communities about programming and linux
there's only 1 common denominator here. we are all nerds
Most of the internet was started with Star Trek boards. If I recall correctly, one of the first emails ever sent was about Star Trek
Also credited with the first widespread fanfics of a TV show, I believe.
And first male pregnancy fan fiction, fan fiction rings, shipping wars, and so on. House wives created the world AO3 writers live in today
Same reason Linux is popular on Lemmy. Lemmy is essentially an explicitly leftist community that appeals to people nerdy and techy enough to leave Reddit and join a smaller platform. Linux is a FOSS, ie leftist techy OS. Star Trek is leftist Sci-Fi.
Nerds, tech, and leftism all congregate on Lemmy.
Star Trek has more historical weight behind it. It more or less created modern scifi fandom. It's probably so widely beloved because it's unlike most scifi in that it's hopeful. It sells you on the idea of a better future where everything could go right, where we can explore space and be chill with everyone. Other scifi franchises sell you on window dressing or a bad future full of the same problems we have now.
People like Star Trek because they want it to be reality in a way that other scifi stuff just doesn't do.
and it's positively liberal compared to The Culture series but obviously far more mainstream. there isn't a real radical reordering of society and humans are basically bioessentialist almost to a fanatical degree, but the fully automated luxury communism itself just seems so radical compared to any visions of the future dropped on us by the ruling classes of today
Judging from how some people talk about ai idk if most people even leftists would like to live in the culture. But yeah, the books turned me into a transgender communist so I'd recommend them based on that
where's The Culture tv show? i don't have the executive function for books anymore.
Amazon is supposedly working on it, but I wouldn't get your hopes up of it being any good.
no other franchise I know of that dominates the federation as much as Star Trek does.
You answered your own question, brother.
c'mon, it's right there
United Federation of Planets
Fediverse of Lemmy Instances
lemmy is created by and for techy dorks, star trek is for the same audience. Many of us are also communist or otherwise leftist, and star trek has done more for us than any other media. Major Nerys Kira, after which one of hexbear's admins is named, was an explicitly violent terrorist who helped liberate her people from a fascist occupation, and she never gets mistreated because of it. Queer content on star trek has not been perfect, but was beter than anywhere else on TV for a long time because they had freedom to explore different ideas about gender and sexuality(when berhman wasn't breathing down their necks) due to sci-fi having the excuse of being a fictional alien species. THe first inter-racial kiss on tv was from star trek, another point in the shows favor. There's also a whole episode where a characrer becomes a Marxist, so coolest shit ever made.
. I could go on for hours, but the bottom line is that it's just peak fiction.Everybody raise your hand if you were radicalized by Star Trek ✋
✋🏻
Specifically the story of Sean Aloysius O'Brien. Kid-me's entire worldview changed that day.
In an interview during the 90's, William Shatner told of a story of him being recognized in mid-perfomance by a sword dancer in a small Iranian village. The man stopped dead in his tracks and looked straight at him uttering with utter amazement; "Captain Kirk?!?" That should give us perspective as to how deep and far Star Trek reached people for the last 51 years.
Source: https://www.quora.com/What-is-the-approximate-number-of-Star-Trek-fans-worldwide
It's not my thing but I appreciate just how much depth and substance Star Trek has to it and the sci-fi theme is a perfect fit for most people who frequent Lemmy.
