Skip episode 1, "Encounter at Farpoint". It sucks all around. Watch it later if you're really curious but don't say I didn't warn you.
If you want to check out a "representative" episode, see Season 5 Episode 2.
(edit: the episode is named Darmok) You don't have to know everything going in, it's self-contained. If you like the episode you'll like Star Trek.
Why would anyone care who the stereotypical white dude is? That is giving importance/energy to the wrong thing. I didn't even really notice nor care who he was (and still don't). That said, I don't generate memes with him in it so I guess I'm doing my part. 🤷🏻♂️
Why would anyone care who the stereotypical white dude is?
Because he doesn’t deserve to be the guy in the meme. Think about all the other actually cool people who have been immortalized in silly memes, a lot of times they get interviewed and it is really funny. Everybody enjoys on some level that the person in the funny meme they are looking at is actually a real human being who has the goofy honor of being famous for the really specific, niche context of that meme.
Why give that joy to a complete asshole and loser? Why give it to a media personality who spreads hate? Who cares if nobody recognizes who Crowder is, Crowder doesn’t even deserve to be interfaced with as an anonymous white dude in a meme, it takes away the necessary shame Crowder should experience at every interface with the broader public.
Are you genuinely struggling to understand why people who think he's actively saying hateful shit about trans people wouldn't necessarily want to increase his presence in the general Zeitgeist?
Or did you just want to slip in the "stereotypical white guy" dog whistle?
If you are actually struggling, i can probably help.
imagine a person saying horrible shit about you, specifically.
Now imagine they have a platform where they say this hateful shit to lots of people, enough that you sometimes run across these people and they also say hateful shit to you, perhaps worse.
Now imagine an unrelated meme is made with this persons face on it and you see it 5,10,15 times a week.
Now imagine that the comments on most of these memes feature a whole bunch of people defending this person and agreeing with the hateful shit they said about you.
I'd imagine that's why some people care.
Genuine question though, what would be the right thing to give the energy/importance to in this scenario?
Only because he's white. If he was black, I would have said stereotypical black. I wasn't addressing this at you. I'll edit to say stereotypical douche bagfrat boy turd thing.
This is why giving importance to "not the focus" of the message gets in the way. Now we aren't talking about -insert meme here- anymore. We are talking about someone's personal issue with how I phrased something. Honestly, just proves the point of getting distracted by irrelevant things.
Honestly I don't remember anything directly antisemitic from him, some of his guests were, if I remember correctly, but not directly from him. Do you happen to know an example of him being openly antisemitic? Not that it matters, he probably is in private.
Here is a wiki source (insert error bars here) discussion of his stance on his work being officially licensed. He thought that use of his work outside of a comic strip would cheapen the value of the strip itself. This was frusterating as a child (who wouldn't want a fucking Hobbes plushy) but now later I can see that it was at the very least a very defensible choice. Compare how people feel about C&H vs something that was commercialized to death like Garfield. Anyway, hope it's useful.
I mean, not really though. He fought to keep companies from merchandizing C&H, mainly because he “wanted to keep the characters pure to every reader’s internal voice.” Basically to keep companies from turning it into a shitty profit center or bastardizing it with a cartoon, etc. I don’t think he really said anything or would have a problem with fans using the images to share stuff, y’know?
Becoming a meme format is a great way to strip all of the original context for most, just look at the point of this thread. Just because it's C+H isn't going to stop that.
Like we saw with the bumper stickers, it wasn't just the stupid Ford v Chevy thing, it was that anyone wanting to make a stupid point on their bumper sticker was lending Calvin's voice to their own stupid crusade.
If you don't know how shitty of a person Steven Crowder is, take a look at this video (tw: verbal abuse) of him berating his pregnant wife.
His whole thing with "Change My Mind" is him going around to college campuses and debate-lording unprepared college students, and at the first sign of losing he weasels out.
Without something like this, I could have gone my whole life not knowing who he was or his opinions. I bet most people are in that boat. Also, it's not like he makes money from the meme format.
Maybe the change my mind meme should just be avoided entirely rather than creating a replacement as it's just giving the bigot more publicity and letting more people know thier name when you complain about it being used rather than the replacement.
On the flip side, I say we continue to use them. Let his legacy be something completely out of his control, and let him learn that while he's still alive.