“Star Trek offered hope to a generation who had grown up haunted by the specter of nuclear war. A significant portion of its viewers remembered the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the country was readying for World War III. Kids were being taught to “duck-and-cover”; beneath their school desks if they saw an atomic flash. Grim end-of-the-world scenarios were shown in popular books and films. At the same time, our paranoia toward Soviet Russia had reached an all-time high—which may explain why space aliens were generally portrayed in fims as evil monsters, bent on conquering Earth. And in the midst of this paranoia and fear came a bright message of hope in the form of Star Trek, which said, “Yes, we will survive the atomic age. We will contact other intelligent life on other planets, and they’ll be our friends, not our enemies. Together, we’ll work for the common good.’”— Leonard Nimoy, I Am Spock, hypothesizing on why Star Trek found a place in the hearts of its fans, and why its fans would be so passionate about it.
(via greekamazon)I hypothesize that this new wave of Trek fans has very similar reasons. I know for me, I started watching Trek during the pandemic because I was struggling with severe anxiety and loneliness and I desperately needed something positive. I laid on the couch and just watched back to back episodes of TNG and imagined a good future where the Earth unified and we solved climate change and we became the kind of people portrayed in Star Trek
Yeah and like. I’ve had this big huge fear my whole life of both space and aliens (thanks dad) but my friend got me to watch DS9 and like. It couldn’t have come at a better time, bc I was just feeling really hopeless and shit about the future and the plague tbh but like. The stunning combo of DS9 helping me over my fear of aliens and space by making space feel like a home and making all the aliens really relatable and/or fruity, and of the general hopeful message trek has of “Hey humanity can fuck up really bad and we’re probably gonna keep fucking up for a hot minute but. We can improve and we might have friends out there who want to help us do that,” and the wish fulfilment of living in a post-scarcity society where for the most part you can follow your passions, and it just being a really compelling story?
I didn’t think I’d like space sci-fi at all but seeing trek for the first time is making me feel shit I haven’t felt since I first watched and read lotr as a kid, and it’s really nice