ST or SW: Which is more of an influence on daily life?

[Darth Wong]

If you want to know which is more pervasive, and has the most influence simply look at fashion. Clothing manufacturers are dependent on being able to make clothes that will appeal to a large portion of the population.

Now, when was the last time you saw a shirt with Kirk, Picard, or anyother Trek character on it. Compare that to Wars.

Indeed, I needed a T-shirt a while ago when I was on vacation and ran out of clean clothes. I found a local Wal-Mart, went inside, and found a whole rack of Star Wars-themed T-shirts. I bought a "Vader" T-shirt, which was of course the coolest looking one. There were actually several different types of Vader-themed T-shirt, as well as some sweatshirts with similar themes. Not a Star Trek-themed shirt in sight.

[FSTargetDrone]

Yes, the last film was "Nemesis" ... which was beaten at the box office on its opening weekend by the cheesy summer fly-by-night comedy Maid in Manhattan.

Ouch.

Personally, I think that if there hadn't been any more films after ST6, we probably wouldn't have missed very much. Except for making fun of them, of course. The sound of this rumored "prequel" that's in the works is already starting to give me the creeps.

One of the things that punctates Star Wars' influence for me is the last scene from Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back. Could they have pulled off a Star Trek spoof instead? I wouldn't bet on it.

The closest thing to a "spoof" of Trek that I recall were featured on a few SNL/Simpsons/Futurama episodes. There was an episode of Futurama where nearly the whole cast (if not all of them?) of TOS Trek were featured.

Then you also have the Trekkies documentaries of Trek fan conventions, but that's not exactly a spoof. My g/f and I rented Trekkies once, and she found the whole thing absurd.

[Bounty]

The closest thing to a "spoof" of Trek that I recall were featured on a few SNL/Simpsons/Futurama episodes.

Plus Galaxy Quest, even though they don't mention Trek by name.

[FSTargetDrone]

Of course, Galaxy Quest, definitely. I just saw it again a few days ago, but I didn't even think about it. But it's surely the best filmed spoofs of Trek-esque shows, and Trek in particular.

[Kurgan]

Using Kurgan's logicimal reasoning, football is nerdy because the games mean a lot more to the people who know all the players' and team's history and track records. And so everything must be nerdy and we can't ever compare appeal to 'nerdiness'

Yes, these people are football nerds! Was that so hard?

If you take nerdness as a bad thing, then of course you'll deny it. But if you pin the label on somebody else who behaves in similar fashion with some other fandom, you'd be hypocritical (and still a nerd).

[Kurgan]

You can try as hard as you want to pretend that Star Wars is just as nerdy as Star Trek, but the fact remains that Star Wars has far broader appeal, and as a matter of general principle, it is impossible for something with too much mass-market appeal to be perceived as "nerdy" because the "nerd" subgroup is, like many sociological concepts, defined in relative terms, ie- relative to the general population.

Bullshit. You're defining the franchises themselves as nerdy rather than the participants. You wouldn't deny that there are plenty of Star Wars nerds, only that they are somehow less nerdy than Star Trek nerds, which is unprovable. The fact that Star Wars is more merchandise oriented means that it appeals to collectors (a form of nerd) by default.

If you define nerd as a cult subgroup, then it may have merit, but you'd have to apply the same thing to nerds in both groups. Most fans don't go to the extreme they do in their fandom. I'd say you're a nerd by degree, not by association.

If I tell somebody "I'm a Star Wars nerd" they know I mean I'm really into Star Wars. Otherwise it would be repetative. They wouldn't say "but that's impossible, Star Wars is mainstream!"

Embrace your nerdness.

[Kurgan]

I take it back, you're geeks.

[Darth Wong]

You can try as hard as you want to pretend that Star Wars is just as nerdy as Star Trek, but the fact remains that Star Wars has far broader appeal, and as a matter of general principle, it is impossible for something with too much mass-market appeal to be perceived as "nerdy" because the "nerd" subgroup is, like many sociological concepts, defined in relative terms, ie- relative to the general population.

Bullshit. You're defining the franchises themselves as nerdy rather than the participants.

What difference does it make, you stupid nitpicking shit-for-brains asshole? The point is that when the mainstream likes something, it isn't "nerdy" because "nerdy" is a relative social term. The fact that you can also rephrase this as "when mainstream people like something, they aren't nerds because nerd is a relative social term" means precisely jack shit.

You wouldn't deny that there are plenty of Star Wars nerds, only that they are somehow less nerdy than Star Trek nerds, which is unprovable. The fact that Star Wars is more merchandise oriented means that it appeals to collectors (a form of nerd) by default.

Of course it's provable, you idiot. If you actually read the post you were replying to instead of being a mindless blithering jackass, you would have seen the part where I point out that Star Wars fandom is relatively mainstream, and all social terms are relative to the mainstream.

If you define nerd as a cult subgroup, then it may have merit, but you'd have to apply the same thing to nerds in both groups. Most fans don't go to the extreme they do in their fandom. I'd say you're a nerd by degree, not by association.

And that degree is RELATIVE TO SOCIAL NORMS, dipshit. How many fucking times do I have to explain this? Do you need it spelled out for you in fucking crayon?

If I tell somebody "I'm a Star Wars nerd" they know I mean I'm really into Star Wars. Otherwise it would be repetative. They wouldn't say "but that's impossible, Star Wars is mainstream!"

Embrace your nerdness.

That would mean you are unusually "into" Star Wars; it would not, however, mean that Star Wars fans are considered "nerdy" in general, nor would it validate your original bullshit claim that Star Wars fans are just as "nerdy" as Star Trek fans. Once again: RELATIVE TO THE NORM. Try to use that lump of gray matter in your skull for a moment.

[Darth Wong]

Using Kurgan's logicimal reasoning, football is nerdy because the games mean a lot more to the people who know all the players' and team's history and track records. And so everything must be nerdy and we can't ever compare appeal to 'nerdiness'

Yes, these people are football nerds! Was that so hard?

If you take nerdness as a bad thing, then of course you'll deny it. But if you pin the label on somebody else who behaves in similar fashion with some other fandom, you'd be hypocritical (and still a nerd).

Resorting to Appeal to Motive fallacies now?

Let me explain it one more fucking time: terms like "nerd" have no absolute meaning. There is no absolute level of interest in something that makes you a "nerd" or "geek"; it is all RELATIVE TO SOCIAL NORMS. In America, the term "football geek" has no meaning because everybody does it. Step OUTSIDE America and it has meaning again because the rest of the world is more psychologically healthy and less obsessed with team sports.

[RThurmont]

As a professional marketing consultant I am somewhat apalled by the sidetrack this topic has taken into the relative nerdiness of SW vs. ST.

The bullshit here, Kurgan, is the assumption that you can arbitrarily define a franchise and/or its fans as "nerdy" based on empirical evidence and unilateral assumptions about what nerdiness actually is. Your arguments (or rather, those that haven't oscillated dramatically in between posts), have been rather ludicrous from this perspective.

Darth Wong is spot on in his assumption that nerdiness is relative to social norms, and of course it goes without saying that at the same time, something simply not being mainstream does not neccessarily make it nerdy (Saabs are by no means mainstream automobiles, but are not particularly "nerdy" either).

However, all of this aside, we are still faced with a fundamental question, of which franchise is nerdier? The fact that Star Wars has mainstream popularity is not enough to disprove "nerdiness" in it, because what should be obvious is that all buyers of the product are not equal in terms of the quantity that they buy-different Star Wars viewers have different levels of appreciation for the franchise, ranging from the casual viewer to the dedicated fan. Clearly, Star Wars has an extremely broad, mainstream viewer base and increasingly smaller bases of more and more dedicated fans, moving all the way up the spectrum from the guy whose seen ANH twice in the theatre to someone who has statuettes of Grand Admiral Thrawn in their living room and attends Halloween parties dressed up as Exar Kun.

This relates to the core dispute here, in that the orientation of the more loyal buyers can give us a direct indication of what non-mainstream social groups a brand can be associated with. For example, Apple is a mainstream brand, with a very broad casual user base (the people who own iPods and at one point or another may have had a Mac in the house), yet it's a brand that is strongly associated with particular groups: independent-thinking, generally left-wing, highly creative types in fields such as graphics design and the motion picture industry. These liberal, coastal, independent yuppie graphics designers have an enormous influence on the brand, and are strongly associated with it, stemming from the fact that they are the extremely loyal core user base of the product. They are the brand evangelists.

In a similiar way, Star Wars, though undeniably mainstream, can also be strongly associated with non-mainstream elements, and in particular, the non-mainstream groups that comprise its most loyal buyers. However, determining the nature and identity of these groups, and the extent to which they influence the public perception of the franchise, is not something that can be done simply by making a guess based on empirical evidence. Ideally, proper market research would be desirable, but since that obviously isn't an option for our purposes, I think the best approach is to draw up a list of attributes that are commonly associated with nerds, with Trekkies (the loyal buyers of Star Trek), and Warsies (the loyal buyers of Star Wars, as so eloquently nicknamed by "the other side"). Once you have a good a sense of what these attributes are, it is then possible to compare them and look for shared attributes. Only then can a franchise be said to be "nerdier" than the other, if "nerdy" at all.

I would encourage those debating in this thread to try that approach, and perhaps we can have a few competing attribute sets, but from these, in general, I think as a group we might be able to gain some understanding of whether or not ST, SW or both are in any way "nerdy."

Also it is worth noting that the association of non-mainstream groups with a particular brand might actually motivate mainstream consumers to use that brand. The most extreme example of this would be celebrities: obviously not a mainstream group, they are a group perceived to be held as desirable by the mainstream, and as a result companies pay a fortune to get them to endorse their products. Nerds, while mistakenly perceived in this thread to be reviled antisocial slobs with snot dribbling out of their noses, have served as digital trailblazers quite often, and the endorsement of one technology by them over another can be persuasive to the average consumer. Trendsetters exist, and the impact of the trend-setting, influential non-mainstream groups on the mainstream buyer cannot be overstated.

[Darth Wong]

I would say that we here are probably considered Star Wars geeks, because our level of interest in Star Wars is well above the norm. I would say that I am considered a Star Wars geek. But Star Wars fans in general are not considered that way because its appeal is too broad for that. In any case, this "nerdiness" thing actually has absolutely nothing to do with the thread subject, and is just Kurgan looking for some bullshit excuse to equalize the two sides by changing the subject.

The actual impact of Star Wars on the "collective unconscious" is greater than that of Star Trek. Star Trek's impact is limited primarily to certain special effects: the transporter or the phaser. Star Wars' impact is deeper, and more cultural: the idea of the Force, and its particular notions of good and evil. As Coppola once said, if George Lucas didn't find success with Star Wars as a movie, he might have had a good shot at making a religion out of it.

Ronald Reagan sprinkled references to Star Wars throughout his political career, and John McCain in his presidential bid once compared himself to Luke Skywalker. There is a particular convergence of heroism, moral clarity and the world of Star Wars in peoples' minds which Star Trek has often aspired to but never come remotely close to achieving.

[LordShaithis]

All I know is that I went to a midnight showing of Revenge of the Sith with my dad when it came out, and the crowd was a bunch of couples and highschool kids. And two or three retards in Sith costumes, wearing the facial expression of someone who has mistakenly arrived at a non-masquerade party wearing a pirate suit.

[FTeik]

Clearly, Star Wars has an extremely broad, mainstream viewer base and increasingly smaller bases of more and more dedicated fans, moving all the way up the spectrum from the guy whose seen ANH twice in the theatre to someone who has statuettes of Grand Admiral Thrawn in their living room

I'm probably outing myself with this, but ...







... where can i get such a statue?

[RThurmont]

... where can i get such a statue?

Ha! No idea, though.

The actual impact of Star Wars on the "collective unconscious" is greater than that of Star Trek.

That is absolutely undeniable. Assuming total sales has an influence on the impact, Star Wars is at least six times more pervasive in our day to day lives.

In its prime though, we cannot deny that Star Trek was influential. Note the space shuttle Enterprise, the use of the phrase "Borg" to describe extremely dull, conformist, like-minded people, and other examples. However, its cultural influence undeniably peaked around 1993, and has since plummetted. People are no longer motivated by it. Also even in its prime, Star Trek still failed to match Star Wars, which immediately became influential. Star Wars was somewhat of an overnight success story, whereas Star Trek took all of the 1970s to gain traction in the marketplace.

The Reagan example Darth Wong gave is enlightening. George Lucas, somewhat of a liberal mystical figure who has historically taken veiled political potshots throughout the franchise (at Vietnam in the original and the Iraq War in the PT) , logically should have had an equal or lesser chance of influencing Reagan than Star Trek. However, Reagan used substantial portions of the Star Wars metabrand repeatedly in his speeches and as ways of packaging his various initiatives such as the SDI. If I recall correctly, nowhere was a Star Trek refence used, and this was during the height of Trek popularity.

[FTeik]

... where can i get such a statue?

Ha! No idea, though.

A pity. It would have looked nice next to my Vader-bust.

[JediMaster415]

I don't really know how relevant this is but very few in my high school seem to have heard of Star Wars.

When I'm in class, I'm reading a Star Wars novel. Someone will come up to me, ask what I'm reading. I'll say it's a Star Wars novel. They'll ask, "What's Star Wars?" After I stare at them for a couple minutes, I'll start listing things in an attempt to spark recognition. "You know, Star Wars. Jedi. Lightsabers. Death Star. Darth Vader. Millennium Falcon. The Force. *insert Vader's breathing.* Star Wars." When that doesn't work, I just tell them to get a life.

I have one teacher who is a Star Wars fanatic. Her entire classroom has Star Wars posters strewn around the class and a cardboard Anakin in the corner. She is known around the school as The Star Wars Teacher.
Other than her, it's only my friends and the odd sci-fi geek that knows what Star Wars is about.

[Darth Wong]

I don't really know how relevant this is but very few in my high school seem to have heard of Star Wars.

When I'm in class, I'm reading a Star Wars novel. Someone will come up to me, ask what I'm reading. I'll say it's a Star Wars novel. They'll ask, "What's Star Wars?" After I stare at them for a couple minutes, I'll start listing things in an attempt to spark recognition. "You know, Star Wars. Jedi. Lightsabers. Death Star. Darth Vader. Millennium Falcon. The Force. *insert Vader's breathing.* Star Wars." When that doesn't work, I just tell them to get a life.

I have one teacher who is a Star Wars fanatic. Her entire classroom has Star Wars posters strewn around the class and a cardboard Anakin in the corner. She is known around the school as The Star Wars Teacher.
Other than her, it's only my friends and the odd sci-fi geek that knows what Star Wars is about.

That's weird. The sales figures certainly suggest that your experience is rather anomalous, since somebody is buying all of this stuff and watching the movies so many times. And as I said, you can't help but trip over Star Wars pop culture references in all other forms of media because they're everywhere, right up to presidential politics.

[Ender]

Using Kurgan's logicimal reasoning, football is nerdy because the games mean a lot more to the people who know all the players' and team's history and track records. And so everything must be nerdy and we can't ever compare appeal to 'nerdiness'

Yes, these people are football nerds! Was that so hard?

If you take nerdness as a bad thing, then of course you'll deny it. But if you pin the label on somebody else who behaves in similar fashion with some other fandom, you'd be hypocritical (and still a nerd).

Resorting to Appeal to Motive fallacies now?

Let me explain it one more fucking time: terms like "nerd" have no absolute meaning. There is no absolute level of interest in something that makes you a "nerd" or "geek"; it is all RELATIVE TO SOCIAL NORMS. In America, the term "football geek" has no meaning because everybody does it. Step OUTSIDE America and it has meaning again because the rest of the world is more psychologically healthy and less obsessed with team sports.

Soccer Hooligans. Concession accepted.

[JediMaster415]

That's weird. The sales figures certainly suggest that your experience is rather anomalous, since somebody is buying all of this stuff and watching the movies so many times. And as I said, you can't help but trip over Star Wars pop culture references in all other forms of media because they're everywhere, right up to presidential politics.

Most of the people in my school are concerned with "acting black", rappers and being as loud, obnoxious and belligirent as possible.

[CoyoteNature]

I like both for different reasons, and think both have different influences on society, agreed that ST's tends to be dying out now anyway, who knows maybe the next revamp might revive it.

Ehh, I'm more of a science fiction nerd, then specific nerd, I suppose it can mean finatic used in a certain context.

Depends on how you see it yourself, and how others see you; don't think it matters all that much anyway, most things are subjective anyway.

Also depends on what you get out of it, if I had to compare I'd say ST appears more sciency, SW has more popular appeal. For most normal people I'd say they don't read much science fiction anyway or consider it that important, and the deeper you get the nerdier you are by default, so ST is probably nerdier because you need to have more scifi knowledge, that or a abundant love of cheese.

Nerd would have to be I guess convention time, and/or standing for months previous to see the movie, that would be what most people would define as nerd, and dressing up in a weird costume for your genre would be nerd.

Like some of the Lord of the Rings nerds who dressed up as Gandalf, or Aragorn. Oh how I wanted to do that, just jealous they thought of it first.

Seems like every body has a nerd interest, depends on how you show it to the outside world I suppose.

[B5B7]

I don't really know how relevant this is but very few in my high school seem to have heard of Star Wars.

When I'm in class, I'm reading a Star Wars novel. Someone will come up to me, ask what I'm reading. I'll say it's a Star Wars novel. They'll ask, "What's Star Wars?" After I stare at them for a couple minutes, I'll start listing things in an attempt to spark recognition. "You know, Star Wars. Jedi. Lightsabers. Death Star. Darth Vader. Millennium Falcon. The Force. *insert Vader's breathing.* Star Wars." When that doesn't work, I just tell them to get a life.

I have one teacher who is a Star Wars fanatic. Her entire classroom has Star Wars posters strewn around the class and a cardboard Anakin in the corner. She is known around the school as The Star Wars Teacher.
Other than her, it's only my friends and the odd sci-fi geek that knows what Star Wars is about.

What planet do they live on?!
In the real world the second paragraph should contradict the first.
Reading a novel in class - better be English class!

[Waddles McGee]

Looks like an executive decision has been made. Trek's time has passed, it's time to let Wars in......
But, Guaranteed 40 years from now something better than that (If possible) will take its place(Again, if possible)

Emperor Brandon

[Lord Pounder]

Looks like an executive decision has been made. Trek's time has passed, it's time to let Wars in......
But, Guaranteed 40 years from now something better than that (If possible) will take its place(Again, if possible)

Emperor Brandon

Yeah and?

[18-Till-I-Die]

Actually that may not be so.

Consider other works of liturature, by such as Charles Dickens or Homer, which have permeated our culture to the point the words made up for the story have actual meanings. "Scrooge" means a miserly person now, no matter what or even if it had a previous meaning. I've heard the term "ghost of christmas *insert whatever phrase*" used both deragatory terms and not. Going back to ancient times, say the Troy war stories, and you discovy why 'ajax' means something strong, and what an Achilles heel really means. Or most important of all, what a real Trojan Horse is. You sometimes hear people say something is like Buck Rodgers, not because it involves the old comic but because its futuristic, rocketships and stuff. This is from these things and how they effected people on a vast scale, across pop culture (of their eras).

Considering the effect Star Wars has had on modern pop culture, its not impossible that decades from now, maybe further, words like "Jedi" and "the Force" will take on whole meanings of their own irregardless of what they originally meant. Already i know for a fact of more than one example of the term 'Obi-Wan' being used to mean someone who is remarkable. One was in a rap song with the lyrics, i kid you not, "Dealin' with the Force like Obi..." and i've heard several shows on tv, where people would say things like "What you think you're Obi-Wan?"

Shit i was talking to someone not a few days ago, and admitedly i went a bit 'metaphyiscal' on them about good and evil and morality etc, etc...anyway i was told that i "Sound like Yoda". Fifty years from now, who knows, Yoda might be synonimous with 'sounding intellectual/philosophical when you arent' like Scrooge is now synonimous with being a 'tight wad'.

Just a thought.

[Noble Ire]

Shit i was talking to someone not a few days ago, and admitedly i went a bit 'metaphyiscal' on them about good and evil and morality etc, etc...anyway i was told that i "Sound like Yoda". Fifty years from now, who knows, Yoda might be synonimous with 'sounding intellectual/philosophical when you arent' like Scrooge is now synonimous with being a 'tight wad'.

That, at least, may be true. I myself have heard that on many occasions.

ON another note, didn't the term "Blast" enter the popular lexicon through SW?