Adopting a philosophy
When I first watched Star Trek as a child, I watched it alone in my living room. My father didn't watch a lot of TV and my mother was more into Spanish novellas and horror. I'd flip between Nickelodeon and Fox Channel 6, enjoying the shows but never realizing how long I would follow some of these shows.
When I first watched Star Trek: The Next Generation, I was a little confused at where Kirk and Spock were, as I had seen the movies first. Nevertheless, I enjoyed watching these characters interact with each other. As I got older, my favorite character shifted from Worf to Data to Picard. I also found a couple of friends who also enjoyed Star Trek. They introduced me to DS9 and Voyager.
As I became a young adult, I began to take Trek more seriously. I started looking up words I didn't understand, like "sophistry" or resting on one's "laurels". I started analyzing some of the science around the technobabble. I would ask myself "what's a neutrino?" and by then I was able to look it up online. I also began analyzing Picard himself. I liked his philosophy, which was perfectly encapsulated at the end of The Neutral Zone where Ralph Offenhouse asks Picard what the challenge of life is, if all of his money and friends are gone:
"The challenge, Mr. Offenhouse, is to improve yourself - to enrich yourself. Enjoy it."
He talks about it again when he tries to convince his clone, Shinzon, to change his ways:
"Very deep within you, beneath all the years of pain and anger there is something that has never been nurtured. The potential to make yourself a better man and that is what it is to be human - to make yourself more than you are."
It took me a while to figure out, but I adopted this philosophy. The idea that one can learn to become a better person through reflection and constant self improvement. Self improvement has been apart of Trek since the original series and it often goes hand in hand with open-mindedness and doing what is right.
The rejection of Picard's philosophy
Unfortunately, that philosophy was scrapped in 2009 in preference of more action and even when they brought Jean-Luc Picard back in 2020, he had ceased to self improve and had spent the last x amount of years wallowing in his own self pity, like Luke Skywalker in The Last Jedi. It was so disappointing. The writing for Star Trek Picard, as well as Star Trek Discovery take on a different philosophy. What that philosophy is, I don't exactly know, except to say it's a lot more negative and hostile to the older generation of fans who have noticed the change in Trek.
I've already documented my initial experience with fans of Star Trek Discovery on another blog, where the son of a former Trek cast-member threatened a YouTuber and her viewers with physical violence for criticizing the show. Instead of telling the man giving out threats to chill, Discovery fans justified the threats with lies about what this YouTuber has said in the past, which they couldn't back up when asked to.
Since I started writing these blogs and openly talking about new Trek on Twitter, I've encountered people who simply do not understand the concepts of self improvement, open-mindedness, or doing what is right. They think rewriting Trek history is self improvement, when it's not. They think open-mindedness is accepting inferior writing and dialogue, and if you look at some of these comments I've documented over the last two years, I think we can conclude that new Trek fans certainly don't know how to do what is right. I've covered up the names because some of them didn't like me using their tweets as examples:
I mean, would Picard ever tell someone to "stop being a nitpicky little bitch", or threaten to clone the profiles of minors if someone disagreed with him? Of course not. He would attempt to open dialogue with them. He would try to understand their point of view, while attempting to convey his. He would be the diplomat he was trained to be. So when I encounter these type of people, I try and channel my inner Picard and make an attempt to open dialogue. I will explain what I don't like about the shows and refrain from making personal attacks. Unfortunately, the courtesy is normally not returned:
"Shaka, when the walls fell" Note: I barely know Mecharandom42 other than I watch her YT channel and we occasionally agree about Trek on Twitter.
So he basically accused me, Mecharandom42, and the Midnight Edge guys of attacking people for promoting equality and diversity. He didn't look me up obviously, because he would have been embarrassed to learn that I'm politically a liberal. Before I could respond by asking for examples of these accusations, he blocked me. He continues to send this type of stuff to others. People like this don't actually want to know why you don't like these shows, they just want to attack others and name-call. It's very immature and anti-intellectual for what used to be such and intelligent fan-base.
I am often asked why I even bother talking to these people. It's because I feel like there is always something to learn from a different point of view. However, when I get messages like this, even I ask myself that same question.
Not all new Trek fans are like this - just the majority that I've encountered. I've had wonderful adult conversations with about two or three YouTubers who are fans of the new shows, and we seem to get along, but even some of them will slip up and make videos making fun of or trying to discredit other YouTubers who dislike the show. It's so un-Star Trek like. All of this hostility is unStar Trek like.
The projection of hate
So how do these guys get away with acting like this and pretending people like me are the hostile ones? For one thing, I've noticed they like to use buzzwords. For instance, even though we otherwise love the Star Trek franchise, because we do not like the Discovery or Picard shows, we're often referred to as "haters". Because I love the franchise, but don't care for the recent shows, I don't see myself as a hater, but as a critic who is generally heart-broken over the way CBS and Secret Hideout have abandoned the original spirit of Trek.
"Gatekeeper" is another buzzword I often get called. According to one of the people who called me that, it's "When someone takes it upon themselves to decide who does or does not have access or rights to a community or identity". If Star Trek was a gate, CBS holds the keys and so if you want to be technical, they would actually be the gatekeepers. I'm simply a fan of Trek expressing my opinions.
The more I tried to talk to people, the more I began to see the same patterns repeat over and over, especially when it came to repeating things they had no proof of. I was accused of everything from being a racist to attacking the actors and many today still believe those things about me.
It doesn't help that even the actors act unnecessarily hostile to us, which normally opens a floodgate of hate:
Blocked me.
Blocked me.
Will probably block me now.
Ultimately, I feel as though a lot of this hostility is projection. They have a bucket of paint in their head labeled "hater" or "gatekeeper" that they slather all over your image the moment they feel like they have to defend the shows. In reality, I think they see the same problems we do but ignore them, yet can't defend them in a discussion. So they shift from the subject matter, to our personal motivations. They call us haters because they hate our opinions. They call us gatekeepers because they hate our opinions so much, they're willing to ostracize life-long fans of the franchise from their feeds or pages over it.
Allow me to provide a most recent example of this. April 1st is April Fools and for April Fools, this one Star Trek group on facebook changed their name to "Pee-Wee's Playhouse sh1tposting". They couldn't change their name for a month and because I like both Star Trek and Pee-wee's Playhouse, I joined the group. One day I got booted from the group. Don't know why because I was never notified of the reason. I figured I must have upset someone. I did decide to rejoin the group in case it was a mistake and they accepted me back. About a week later or so, the following exchange occurred:
"Shaka, when the walls fell"
I did want to say to the person who posted last that, yes: I screenshot the entire conversation, but not to brag, but because this is how I cover my own ass. I didn't violate any rules, they just pitchforked and torched me out of the group for simply having a point of view and then rested on their laurels. They made the same baseless accusations as others have and refused to even discuss the issue because in their minds, they were already right. I felt like I kinda got through to the first admin who called me a hater, and then the second admin came in and proved I wasn't just speaking sophistry.
Here are some other examples of new Trek fans acting unTrek like:
He took my tweet to mean that I myself was not progressive, then went on some rant about how Star Trek wasn't for me, lol!
He called her a racist because she used the word "cuck". Seeing as that's an actual word, that's a pretty big jump to make.
She tells people not to bully others while a month before, she was spreading false rumors about Mecharandom42. That's also a form of bullying.
I wont even get into the hate Anas Abdin got over his Tardigrades lawsuit. It was disgusting.
I'm often asked why I even bother trying to talk to these people - There is another reason. Going back to Picard's philosophy: Besides self improvement, open-mindedness and doing what is right, Picard also held a lot of hope and optimism in his intentions. I may no longer consider myself a "trekkie" anymore, but the same hope that Star Trek once gave me still lives and even though human nature rarely changes, I can tell you that individual people do change.
P.S.
To the person whose comments I keep deleting on my other blogs, if you wish to have an actual discussion with me, you might want to start by staying on topic of the post and by not posing as my minor children. Just some friendly advice. :)
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