Pages

Red Shirt Fridays

I find this a bizarrely ironic name for a movement.

People wear all kinds of stuff on the Space Station. One Friday, I tried to read Mike Fossum's shirt. Mike was not cooperative with my efforts. Seems he thought fixing the space station was more important ;)


I was able to read enough of it to see that it was titled "Red Shirt Friday" and that it had something to do with supporting US troops. I did some searching and learned that this is a quiet movement that's been around since possibly 2005. The idea is for people to wear red shirts, which symbolize the spilled blood of soldiers, on Fridays, to show support for our troops, until all of them are brought home. I found no other explanation offered re the symbolism of wearing red shirts for this movement. Blood of soldiers. That's it.

Anybody else find "Red Shirts" an unfortunate and ironic symbol for our troops?!

Non Geeks Click Here

A "Red Shirt" or "Redshirt" is slang for a nameless expendable character that gets killed soon after they appear. The term came about due to the original Star Trek series where crew members in red shirts frequently met their demise by the end of a scene, often in large numbers. Although the term "Red Shirt" is most closely associated with Star Trek, it is often parodied and referred to in other television and film genres as well. 

 

5 Comments:

Judy said...

I just googled it. Kind of cool, I think. Especially since it isn't political. Just supporting our troops. Red might be symbolic in more ways than just the blood spilt, but I don't know. But I think it's really kind of a small thing that I can do. . . I'm going to have to go look for something red :)

Noisy Quiet said...

Ah, your lack of geekness is showing ;) Which is not a bad thing! Lol! I don't think you'll be the only one who doesn't know the other meaning of "Red Shirt." I'll expand on it in a week or so if no other geeks pipe up!

Noisy Quiet said...

"Non-Geek" explanation added, now that I've learned some new code :)

Stella said...

Oh, of course. I was oblivious like Judy until you put it in quotation marks like that. . "Red Shirt" . . . yeah. Not the best idea. Still, if they send the marines for them to wear whatever they like. . .I know that's completely off the topic. .. just saying. . . just had two glasses of read wine too. . . jsut saying. . should I stop now?

Noisy Quiet said...

Since your typing is starting to deteriorate, maybe. lol!

Post a Comment

Click the "Subscribe by email" link below to receive follow-up comments to this post. (To subscribe to the blog as a whole, see my "About" page.)