Like Wagon Train in space!

[yagathai]

So I was IMing with a slightly younger friend of mine -- she's around 20 and I'm still a few years away from the big 3-0 -- about the new Star Trek movie and she asked me if Vulcans ever had sex. At first I thought she was joking, but then I realized that she was not. This girl, a convention regular, a seasoned RHPS performer, a stalwart in the Boston-area fandom scene (and for those of you that don't know, the nerd is strong in Beantown) did not know about Pon Farr.

Those... two or three of you reading this that may not be huge goddamn nerds may not be familiar with the Vulcan's seven-year-itch, but I guarantee you you that even ten years ago you could not walk into a science fiction convention and make a Pon Farr joke and have everyone in that room, male or female, black or white, seventeen to seventy get it. Oh sure, some would laugh, some would roll their eyes, and some might pretend not to understand to make themselves seem "cool" (Harlan Ellison would claim he invented it and then sue you for violating his copyright by mentioning it), but I guarantee that every last person in that room would know what you meant.

Star Trek was an unshakeable cultural commonality. Not everyone in that room knew who Krychek or Flukeman were, or how many episodes of Kolchak ever aired, or who the first person to play Wonder Woman on TV was (Cathy Lee Crosby, btw. that's right, the tennis player. And the villain was Ricardo Montalban), but you could be damn sure they knew a Tribble from a Horta from a Gorn.

Trek, you see, was our touchstone. It was our shibboleth. For many of us it was the wellspring from which our fandom flowed, and for most of us its idealistic, technological and socially progressive future was our utopia, our shining city on the hill, our Mecca and our Star of Bethlehem. Oh, there are those in the community that sneer at it today, but there was not one of us -- not a single goddamn lonely, pimply one -- that did not once identify with Kirk or Spock or Uhura (or, eventually, Data or Wesley or... well, not so much Tasha Yar. She was a bit crap, honestly). It was cross-generational. As a pimply youth I could, and did, debate the merits of the Prime Directive with the hoariest greybeards, and we could both smile and share that thing, despite our otherwise differences in life experience.

But is it possible that Trek has passed so far out of the public view (recent film reboot excepted) that it no longer holds the power to bind us as a community? The current crop of nerdlings don't seem to know the difference between Finnegan and Harry Mudd (though they do know all the words to Doctor Horrible). My generation is the last to know about things like card catalogs and manual car windows (seriously, do you realize that the vast majority of westerners under the age of twenty have no fucking clue why it's called "rolling" down a car window?), and it could be that it's time for Trek to join them on the dusty shelf of obsolete memories.

I guess that's the way of things. I mean, I'm already one of about... three people under 40 that know why the Boskone newsletter is called "Helmuth, Speaking for Boskone" and why that's funny, but I suppose I always thought that Trek would be different, that it would be eternal.

Ah well. Maybe I'm wrong. Even if I'm not, I am, and always will be, your friend a Trek fan.

Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

Comments

[pinkhairedcyn.livejournal.com]

My car still has manual windows. I'm old school. And I have a shitty car.

[ayrdaomei.livejournal.com]

Is it possible there's just something wrong with 20-ish year olds? A couple of months ago, I overheard the deputies explaining a reference to Pearl Harbor to a 21 year old courtroom clerk. Not so much with the living in infamy for that set, apparently.

[dragon-gem.livejournal.com]

You should have heard me try to explain to the 18-year-old file clerk in my office who Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan were. She had no idea.

I didn't know whether to feel old or just scared.

[isis-newton.livejournal.com]

I am more concerned that a generation does not understand that mobile phones have not always existed or that when you took a photo you had to take your film to the chemist and wait a few days to have it developed before you could see if a picture came out or not.

I'm 31 and I've never watched Star Trek. I was more into dragons than spaceships when I was a kid.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

Why? What purpose would that knowledge serve?

[eefster.livejournal.com]

What purpose does knowledge of Pon Farr serve? I'm with Isis on this one. (Which is not to say that concern over what people take for granted these days keeps me up at night, just that Pon Farr concerns me even less.)

Besides, as Isis also pointed out, there are many different styles of nerd, and not all include Star Trek.

[harrytheheir.livejournal.com]

I suppose that's true, but I'm not sure why either is terribly worthy of concern. People take all kinds of things for granted, and pop-culture references are always falling out of fashion.

[hyperiate.livejournal.com]

[This gets increasingly relevant as I'm just growing old...]

Way back when
In Sixty-seven
I was the dandy
Of Gamma Chi
Sweet things from Boston
So young and willing
Moved down to Scarsdale
Where the hell am I

Hey Nineteen
No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
Hey Nineteen
That's 'Retha Franklin
She don't remember
The Queen of Soul
It's hard times befallen
The sole survivors
She thinks I'm crazy
But I'm just growing old

Hey Nineteen
No we got nothing in common
No we can't talk at all
Please take me along
When you slide on down
The Cuervo Gold
The fine Colombian
Make tonight a wonderful thing

No we can't dance together
No we can't talk at all

[alanashinean.livejournal.com]

I feel so old now :(

[regina-of-york.livejournal.com]

Hell, yeah.

(And I was already having a mini mid life crisis.)

[ashkta.livejournal.com]

I'm so with you on this. I had an incident a couple years ago with some kids (and mind you I was like...26 or 27 at the time...didn't really consider myself old at all until this happened) when I asked them if they liked Garfield and they did not know what that was. I died a little.

I'm telling you, if I ever have kids (which is becoming less and less of a possibility, actually...) these things will NOT be lost to them. I'll be playing Star Trek while they're in the cradle.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

I hear you, and so will I. Trek will be on constant loop in the nursery. ;)

[grumpymonkey.livejournal.com]

Welcome to old, dude. I been saving you a seat.

[regina-of-york.livejournal.com]

Wait, wait, wait. Is this a Trek fail, or a biology fail? I mean, how did she think they reproduced, fission? Lolz.

Granted, it's still bad.

And I feel really old now.

[kev.livejournal.com]

You know what's sad? That made me feel old. AND I'M TWENTY-FIVE. Seriously, as I've said before - fuck everyone under 23. 'Cept Fran. Fran's cool.

As for the cultural decline of Star Trek, that's an inevitability. The show's high-point in cultural relevancy peaked back in TNG (which I've been watching religiously on Spike TV and... goddamn I love that show). Since then, it's been "DS9" (insular character drama, though some key points were raised), "Voyager" (which... well, Jesus Christ, I'm sure you know what I have to say about that steaming pile), and "Enterprise" (which went from confusing and irrelevant, to bad, to reaching towards relevancy 3 years too late, to finally fanboy wanking before cancellation).

Maybe, just maybe, we can look forward to that utopian space society once again, this time through the eyes of JJ Abrahms.

Too bad we'll have to do it without Ricardo Montalban. :\

[lacyintx.livejournal.com]

My little geekling (9yrs old) and I have made our way through all of Enterprise. We started there because it was the only one I hadn't seen all the way through. Now we are watching TNG. Thank goodness for re-runs and a 300 hour TiVo. (BTW... any clue where a girl can find re-runs of DS9?) TOS and Voyager and ALL the movies are recording as fast as I can find them. She loves them as much as I did... good, bad and otherwise. :)

The girl in question chiming in.

[kdsorceress.livejournal.com]

This girl, a convention regular, a seasoned RHPS performer, a stalwart in the Boston-area fandom scene (and for those of you that don't know, the nerd is strong in Beantown) did not know about Pon Farr.

Alas, I'm not a rhps performer (yet). And I did know about Pon Farr in a vague general sort of way, I just couldn't remember the name, and no one had ever explained it in depth to me.

Star Trek was an unshakeable cultural commonality.

Was. And I'm sorry, but *was*. I'm not a pop-culture historian, I can't tell you what Star Trek replaced, but I'm sure there was something before it that everyone knew about. And there was something before that. If it wasn't fiction, it was fact. People have things that they relate to, just because they were the right age for it.

The current crop of nerdlings don't seem to know the difference between Finnegan and Harry Mudd (though they do know all the words to Doctor Horrible).

Sorry babe. 'scause Dr. Horrible is reasonably awesome.

My generation is the last to know about things like card catalogs and manual car windows (seriously, do you realize that the vast majority of westerners under the age of twenty have no fucking clue why it's called "rolling" down a car window?),

We own a card catalog, alas, without cards. "I wanted to become a writer so I could see my name in the card catalog." -Sandra Cisnero. I know what they are because librarians run deep in my blood --my mother and her mother.

Automatic windows aren't *that* old fashioned. I am trained in the way of locking the door behind me, from not having to deal with automatic locks.

(And then there's my dad's car, which I took my driving test in, which doesn't have a key.)

Damn kids! Get off my lawn!

Damn adults! Get out of our skate park!

~Sor

Re: The girl in question chiming in.

[yagathai.livejournal.com]

Was. And I'm sorry, but *was*. I'm not a pop-culture historian, I can't tell you what Star Trek replaced, but I'm sure there was something before it that everyone knew about. And there was something before that. If it wasn't fiction, it was fact. People have things that they relate to, just because they were the right age for it.


My point is that unlike the Lensmen or Captain Video or Knight Rider or Kolchak, Trek is (or was maybe up until now) something that crossed those generational barriers. The "right age" seemed to be all ages.

[terioncalling.livejournal.com]

There...there are people that don't know why its called rolling down a window? Jesus.

I feel old just from THAT and I'm freaking 22 (a month and a handful of days shy of 23). >_>