Darth Wong wrote:Kurgan wrote:Well now then you get into psychology, etc.
I mean, is the difference between Darkstar and SuperShadow that one of them actually believes what he says?
I would say that it's the fact that there is an entire class of Trekkie which latches onto everything Darkstar says because it's what they want to hear. It's almost quasi-religious that way; they will ignore huge holes shot through his arguments, clear evidence of lies and distortion on his part, etc. in the name of advancing the Holy Cause of Trekdom.
Supershadow, from the sounds of it, is just some crackpot that nobody takes seriously, and who only gained brief prominence by offering to (fraudulently) provide spoiler information that everybody wanted.
One is a deranged crusader, while the other is just a desperate attention-whore. You can make your value judgement on which one's worse, but they're not really the same thing.
There is a theory that the submissions that SuperShadow answers on his page are a fraud (that he writes them all himself). However I actually read through most of a thread about him on SW.com that seemed to indicate otherwise. SS has his followers, and they call him things like "oh Great One" and "Jedi Master Soupes," etc. So, the quasi-religious thing is actually quite apt. SuperShadow's rep has suffered serious setbacks, but people continue to visit his site, and send him questions that indicate people still believe in him. I have no statistics to show the number of people who believe SuperShadow is greater or less than those who believe Darkstar. Does that even matter?
Has it ever been demonstrated that Darkstar is the norm for Star Trek fans?
You're more familiar with him than I am Mike, having debated him before.
As to SS: I read bits of his site back in the day (pre-Episode I), but avoided most of it for fear of spoilers (now it turns out I probably wouldn't have learned anything important, but I didn't know that at the time). I treated his site as one spy-spoiler page among many. I later read his scripts just for fun and realized how goofy and unlikely they were. With the Episode III hoopla beginning I noticed his site was still up and read some of the articles "debunking" him, and realized the sheer depth of lunacy of the whole thing. Not having been one of his victims, I'm content to mock his efforts, rather than lash out I guess. ; )
As to the Darkstar thing, I read his "battle of britain" page and the "debunking" page of Mike's site about him (though I tend to avoid hate mail pages, since they're tedious to read). I realize he's quite hated, and I have no desire to defend him. I hope no one here has the impression that by attacking SuperShadow I am
defacto defending Darkstar. I sense a certain defensiveness here about that, so let's put that to rest before it gets out of hand. Nor would I judge all fans of a franchise based on some outstanding examples. My examples of obsessed stupid Star Wars fans were to show that I don't feel "our guys" are less capable of stupid behavior.
As far as Star Trek being preachy, I agree it is. But then is Star Wars not preachy? Reading over debates over the evil of the empire, or complaints about the "black & whiteness" of Lucas's stories, or even reviews of KOTOR (being "politically correct" in its portrayal of the Dark/Lightside), I get the impression that some people do find Star Wars to be "preachy."
Well, I've explained myself, flame away...
on that last one ).