this post was submitted on 18 Dec 2023
581 points (94.8% liked)

Asklemmy

43952 readers
750 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_A@discuss.tchncs.de~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

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?

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[โ€“] Ilikecheese@lemm.ee 26 points 11 months ago (4 children)

hasn't been successfully brought into the mainstream

Wat?

[โ€“] pachrist@lemmy.world 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

For real. It's been at least top 3, and arguably top 2, for scifi my entire life.

Star Trek has been at the top for nearly 60 years. In the US at least, you can turn over a rock anywhere and find a Star Trek fan.

[โ€“] AlfredEinstein@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I get what they're saying.

Star Trek is still nerd niche compared to Star Wars or MCU.

[โ€“] Mothra@mander.xyz 5 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Sure but what a way to use the word "mainstream"

[โ€“] actual_patience@programming.dev 2 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I think it fits. Perhaps in Europe the fan base is less large. Star Wars, Harry Potter, and even Dune are what people around me are into. Though it's mainly (only) just Star Wars.

[โ€“] Mothra@mander.xyz 2 points 11 months ago

How do you define mainstream? Sure it has to vary with demographics etc. But if you ask any random person, "have you ever heard about Star Trek?" , you will get a yes for an answer in too many cases, even if they've never watched it. Show them images of the characters and they'll likely go "aahhh yes those". Compare that to something more obscure like "have you ever heard about Aeon Flux?" and you'll probably get weird looks even though there are comics, a movie and an animated series of it. Star Trek may not be as popular as other franchises, but it is mainstream imo.

[โ€“] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 12 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, IDK. As a huge Trekkie, Iโ€™ve been nothing but pleased that Trek forced its way into the mainstream without changing its progressive this-is-for-everyone values.

[โ€“] BigBananaDealer@lemm.ee 4 points 11 months ago (5 children)

im not a trek fan but i hear that a lot dont like how it became more action oriented than it should be. is that a true criticism?

[โ€“] Honytawk@lemmy.zip 10 points 11 months ago

Star Trek has always been more about diplomacy than violence.

It is a trek between the stars, not a war.

That said, it contains action, but it wasn't the main selling point.

[โ€“] Gabu@lemmy.ml 6 points 11 months ago

Very much so, yes. That's what turned me off of Picard, for instance (and the whole "Earth is back to being a shithole after a single android attack" thing).
The very obvious subtext of every good Star Trek episode and plot is that just talking things through is a good way to solve most problems. Newer writers don't seem to have gotten the memo, and instead try to cram as much generic hollywood garbage as they can into the series.

[โ€“] RaoulDook@lemmy.world 3 points 11 months ago

That's only an issue with some of the new trek series, not the classic ones from last century. I'm not really concerned with paying attention to the new ones at all.

[โ€“] Telodzrum@lemmy.world 2 points 11 months ago

nuTrek (the Abrams movies) and Picard S1 were way more action than I was expecting and it made me like them a lot less than other properties. However, the vast majority of Trek is not action-oriented at all and is more about traditional science-fiction stories โ€” providing an abstraction of real-world issues and approaching them through a philosophical lens with spaceships, alien races, and esoteric concepts as allegory.

[โ€“] Gormadt@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 11 months ago

That was pretty true for a long time but it's changing as of the last decade or so

I fucking love Star Trek and have since I was a kid 20+ years ago

I guess I mean this in a relative way.

I can talk about Star Wars and basically everyone I know has a lot of context. Most people have watched a good amount of it. Even people who are explicitly not nerds know about it. Same with most comic stuff.

Meanwhile Star Trek is still a lot more niche. People know the bare basics of what it is, but that's about it. With the exception of my SO, I've met a grand total of two people who watch it.

Also if someone knows a lot about Star Wars or Marvel they don't necessarily know a lot about other nerd IPs. Meanwhile the people who knew about Star Trek also knew about shit like Farscape, Dark Matter, and other IP that just gets confused looks from most people.