If I'm posting Doomcock, it's not to signal-boost him.
No, this is not about how bad this Fake Trek is anymore than how bad Mouse Wars is.
What I am going to put to you is that those of you thinking that the demolitions of these franchises (and others) by the Death Cult are coming to an end are going to be disappointed. No, not for the very obvious reasons--the replacements are acolytes of those departing, so it's only going to get worse--but for a reason that only David Stewart (and myself) have said: The Normies are not going to abandon the Brand.
Normies do not go out of their way for a damned thing, and Normies do not trust anything that lacks the (seeming of) institutional support. They'll keep coming back to these two Brands because they are The Ones That Matter; Your Favorite Not-Film/TV Thing does not matter because that support does not (seem) to exist.
This is the vain hope akin to all the D&D YouTubers thinking that Wizards of the Coast are fucked and Current Edition is dead.
You are not getting that Netflix deal. You are not going to be scouted by Hollywood (or its counterparts elsewhere). You are outside the Normiesphere, and because you are outside that bubble you do not exist.
The fight for the culture is fought in the Normiesphere. That's the battlefield, because the Normies are both the prize and the battlefield; they, as an aggregate, determine what the culture is by what they consume and demand. This is why AAA Gaming matters, while Indies (outside a few Noticed By The Dorito Pope) struggle to make headway, and so on.
It's why the Death Cult seized, and holds, the gates separating the Normiesphere from Everything Else.
How then to deal with it? I've told you this several times before; it applies to all cultural elements.
You want to fight? You have to do so FROM THE INSIDE!
This is why The Orville matters while Your Totally Original Take On The Premise, Really, You Mean It does not. The Orville has institutional support, and thus is within the Normiesphere; your Indie Darling does not, so it is not, so no one sees it and thus it has no impact on the culture.
It is not enough to do good work. It is not enough to get good word of mouth. You have to be seen by the Normies to matter. That means finding a way into the Normiesphere and hijacking the Network Effect to your advantage. Seth had good relations with FOX, so he got to do his Trek Fanfic Show. Vic Mignolia had some acting pals, some time, and some money so he could do his his own Trek Fanfic Show which got an audience and even Shatner's approval of Vic's performance as Kirk.
This is where we are now, like it or not, and the enemy knows it; that is why they are relentless about seizing and holding Brands and gatekeeping the Normiesphere- and it's why they are so relentless in pursing any they don't control (see the recent fuckery regarding 40K). They can only rule when they have Total Narrative Supremacy, so they have to have Total Media Control across the board- not even your hobbies and passtimes are exempt.
The good news is that it is possible, increasingly, to cut the corpos out of the loop entirely and hijack the Network Effect for ourselves. The release of generative AI means making your own Brand stuff is easier than ever, and it's not hard to do better than incompetent Death Cult corpo crap. Just take a look at how fans clown on the Mouse. Even the shitposters mocking it all are putting out better stuff than the Mouse, and because it has the Brand Normies will watch it.
Fight where the war is, not where you wish it was. Fight in the Normiesphere, inside the dominant Network, where the people that matter will see it and care about it, and seize its Effect for your own advantage.
It also means that creating outside the Normiesphere now must be done for its own sake, and as that realization hits expect a lot of people to GTFO and go where the action is.
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