Trekkies

After viewing the Trekkies video I would say that I am not as effected as some other people but like Joli Jenson said this can be disrespectful to others, encourages elitist assumptions, and acts as a scapegoating mechanism. I would say that this movie is disrespectful to others in different ways. Even as we watched the video we were laughing at how ridiculous some of the things they did were. For example, the fact that one of the cling ons paid thousands of dollars for the mask. We also make fun of them for dressing the way they do or even for how much stuff they collect from the show. Some of the assumptions that we make from the Trekkies video is that some of the people are loners who may not be but the movie or even how they act makes them seem like they are. We do not know everything about their background or what they do fully besides what the movie made them out to be. It is not fair to them. We also have the opposite extreme where like the group that met every week and had discussions about Star Trek. I would also say that the ladies who ran the talk show were on the opposite extreme. We think that they are all nuts for being so involved in a show.

My Fandom

I would say that the difference between normal and obsessive fandom is how in depth you go with the fandom. For example, are you someone who must follow everything the person or show does, like the people in trekkies did or just someone who really enjoys that person or show? I would also say that obsessive fandom would be not knowing much of anything else. Like in the trekkies film when all the people were dressed like the people of Star Trek and followed what they did. It really depends on who you ask whether or not there really is a drastic difference in normal and obessive fandom. I think also depends on the actual person who has the fandom. I think they in themselves can make it a drastic change depending on what all they adhead to. I cannot say that I have a specific fandom because I am not really I have to watch this all the time or this is my asolute favorite movie or show or person. I have some movies and shows I prefer over others but nothing I would say I was obsessed with. When I watch shows or movies I usually do not pick up on major things that I want to follow or be like oh I want to be like this person. I just enjoy watching certain things rather than others. Some people may say that I am obsessed with One Tree Hill because I love you to watch that show but I can not say that I follow really anything they do. I do not even have any of the seasons on dvd or pictures of the cast members which I think would be some of the characteristics of someone who is under a fandom of a certain show or person.

New TV genre

If I were going to create a new tv genre I would create something that would combine the genres of kids and history. I may even make it a cartoon to make it even more interesting for younger children. I would take fact portion of history and turn them into stories for children to understand. This would make the genre mainly kids focused because it would include all the kid aspects in it but have history facts throughout the entire show. The cartoon would just grab the kids attention a little better because most kids enjoy animation actors over real actors. This hybrid would work because it would make the kids more interested in learning new things while doing something most of them love to do...watch TV. It would be a new style of teaching instead of making them sit in a classroom to learn everything they need to know. I would pitch the idea as.... A new way of learning... cartoons. This would grab their attention to watching the show and it would just tell them a story about what happened but in a more simpler way than before.

Fandom

As we discussed Fandom in class, I was surprised that there were so many people who were effected so much by characters on a show or movie. I never thought that something so drastic could have not just an effect on one person but on an entire community. When we watched the video about the Trekkies it was interesting to see how much each one was shaped in their own way and what it meant to them to be apart of the conventions with each other. However this was not the most shocking part to me throughout Alyssa's lecture. The idea that fandom came out of indrustrialization and modernization were very interesting to me. I would have expected the fandom to come out of something such as loneliness or just infatuation. We allow everything around us to affect us in more than one way. Indrustrialization was something that changed our country as a whole and it also did individually. It is just another example how some type of mass media shaped us into changing not us into shaping what happens in mass media.