I love Paley Center Events. I’ve been going to them since I was 15 or so. I’ve seen two live radio broadcasts, and three other panels, including a Doctor Who Screening, An Evening with Marvel’s Jessica Jones and a panel about Bill Burr’s Netflix cartoon, F is for Family.
Full disclosure here, this is my 6th New York Comic Con. For most of those years, I’ve had a professional pass, so I can’t speak about things like obtaining badges like a regular fan, because Pros have a different application process. I also may bring up some issues that other attendees might not have.
My name’s Sara, I live in New Jersey, and I’m a Trekkie.
Now that the basics are out of the way, I’ll get into some more detail. I found the course Star Trek: Inspiring Culture and Technology through another person’s twitter feed, and decided it looked interesting. Media Analysis is something I’ve wanted to get into now that I’ve had some life experience. Doing things like term papers in high school English gave me the basics of how, but I don’t think I was able to appreciate it back then like I can now. I don’t have an angle to view Star Trek yet, but I’m hoping to gain some insight through this course.
My 63!Captain Pike and Anson Mount at Dragon*Con 2019
But why Star Trek? Why did I choose this franchise to start learning about media analysis? That answer’s easy. It was my first fandom, long before I even knew what fandom was. I started watching TNG when I was about 8 years old with my dad, a fan of the Original Series, and as soon as I saw the Enterprise I was hooked. I just never told anyone I was hooked. Star Trek wasn’t cool to talk about in school and I never did. It was a secret.
By the time I got to high school, it was the early days of the internet, and I found some like minded fans. For the first time, I found people, other than my immediate family that thought like I did and it was great. I attended my first Star Trek Las Vegas about 16 years ago, and have gone back there and to other cons since. I’m looking forward to expand my fandom on a more academic level and can’t wait to get started.