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December 2001
Download the word version, perfect for printing and handing out on street corners!
The Glory of the Geek
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Ash
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Ah, Star Trek. The ultimate in geek culture. It's somewhat comforting to
know that no matter what's going on in the world, no matter how depressingly
pathetic the state of pop culture gets, there will always be at least one
hour a week filled with bad actors walking around bad sets and speaking bad
lines about 'trilithium', which sounds like a drug Gene Roddenberry should
have taken before he was allowed to make a TV show. And, as long as there
are Star Trek shows, there will be Star Trek fans, and more importantly,
plenty of large people to beat up Star Trek fans. And rightly so, because as
much as I like the TV show, there's nothing more annoying than a guy who
knows exactly how a 'antimatter drive' works, and feels the need to tell me
about it. Enterprise is the latest show to fill the violently nerdy Star
Trek void, which has been left vacant since Voyager was put down like a sick
dog. Yet, as much as Voyager needed to die, it pales in comparison to the
tedious Enterprise. Starring Scott Bakula, of Quantum Leap 'fame', and shot
in what appears to be a particularly shabby storage locker, Enterprise has
all the appeal of videotaped Magic: The Gathering tournament. The acting has
the subtlety of Ace Ventura, the special effects make Babylon 5 look like
The Phantom Menace, and the simplistic, obvious plots make one long for the
complexity of a Spiderman episode. But nevertheless, the show serves a
purpose, and an important one at that. But without Star Trek shows, we
wouldn't have Star Trek fans, and then who would all of us normal folks feel
superior to? There is no universal scapegoat in the pop culture landscape as
effective as Star Trek geeks. Star Wars, while another easy target, is far
too acceptable to society and Kevin Smith to make a good choice. The X-Files
is too popular, and not enough people care about Sailor Moon to make a
difference. The Star Trek fan is the one person the most pathetic, Harry
Potter-reading, comic book-obsessed, Battle Bot-addicted loser can feel
cooler than, and that is a damnably important function. Imagine you actually
cared about WWF Smackdown, and had no one to look down at. You'd kill
yourself between tag team matches on The Superstation faster than you could
say "Redneck 3:16". Imagine John Madden was your hero, or you actually
thought Relic Hunter was a good show, or you spent significant portions of
your spare time dubbing Mystery Science Theatre 3000 videos, and there was
no lower level of pop-culture social strata to feel better than. There
wouldn't be enough bullets in the world for all the people desperate to load
a gun and put themselves out of their dateless misery. And then, short on
ammunition, our troops in Afghanistan would be completely unarmed against
the wild, TV-deprived Muslim hordes, who are so lacking of the Star Trek
scapegoat that they fear not death, and in fact welcome it as an escape from
a world where coolness depends on beard-length. So do Western society a
favor, and watch Enterprise. While buying war bonds.
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