Trekkies continued....

My first reaction to this video was that these people were just absolutely out of the ordinary and it was just a ridiculous idea to me that people would waste their time and money on this interest for Star Trek. But the more we talked about fandom and the validation for it, I guess that I could see some positive things coming from the Trekkie group. The two functions we talked about were Identity and Community. So many of these fans identified themselves through Star Trek. There was one guy who even changed his name to one of the commanders because he felt that he would be happier if he was associated with the particular Star Trek character. The dentist shows us an example of community. The dentist wanted to have people be able to come to his office and experience the community of Star Trek. He and his family not only wanted to be a part of the Star Trek community and bring others into it, but they identified themselves through it as well, wearing attire and such outside of work as well. The idea of people dressing up as Star Trek characters and going to conventions all over the world is a crazy and a new idea to me, but I do accept that this is a group that effects our media and the way that we view industrialization and modernization. We all have different interests and belong to different affinity groups, I just think that sometimes letting TV shows and media consume our lives, withholds us from seeing the important issues of the world sometimes…which may be just what these Trekkies are doing…kind of forming their own little society and group, trying to avoid some important and perhaps, emotional issues within society?