contextual poachers

This phenomenon of reading deeply into what would have previously been perceived as “low culture” (reading the romance as well as this essay) in order to extract elements of academic merit is at times baffling to me. I had to step back from the reading and remind myself exactly what we were talking about (how easy it is to get swept up in the prose). It is very hard for me to see these star trek fans as creating/having any kind of agency due to the fact that at the end of the day they are merely over consuming mass media to the point of it’s logical end. Having said this, I have to add that I did really enjoy The Velveteen Rabbit connection at the beggining of chapter two, I think it really helped me to put the whole thing into a larger perspective rather than focusing my efforts on trying to accept star trek as valid (truthfully my opinions here will always show through, I hate Star Trek). The idea that something becomes “real” or validated through the “loving” of that thing is such a simple yet beautiful understanding of culture (I’m a die hard velveteen rabbit fan, or I used to be…). I think I will make this my credo from now on. Can something be canonized within culture through the hating of it? Could the author have just as easily dissected the culture of furbies or something to that effect?