It's APRIL FIFTH: Make First Contact with #StarTrekDay & share your pics!

WE WANT YOUR PICS! Of what? See below...

So, first the cool news:

In this, the FORTY-SEVENTH year of aired Star Trek .... we have exactly FIFTY YEARS until first contact with the Vulcans.

In Bozeman, Montana*.

On April 5, 2063.

Sparked by Zephram Cochrane's test warp flight of the Phoenix that day, a landmark in human history.

(Since the Vulcans, Romulans and Klingons, for starters, had all already been there/done that.)

Meanwhile, back in our time ... the boom in social media has led to the cutesy mainstream appearance of memes and trivia in posts and tweets that geeks formerly had to pass amongst themselves, like secret handshakes. Such as the launch of the Jupiter II (Oct. 16, 1997), or the day the Moon was blasted out of its Earth orbit (Sept. 13,1999)—did you miss them both? (And if I have to explain either one of those non-Trek references, you need to go back to Go and not collect 200 quatloos.)

But thus was how Star Trek's birthday on Sept. 8 (1966, first airing of TOS on NBC), and May 4th over in SWarsville  (May the Fourth/ "May the Force...",  get it?) got even more note among the mundanes .... and were soon to be joined by 4/5/63 as just as key a date in Trekland—The Day Everything Changed. Finally.—when humanity not only got a faster-than-light engine but a Galactic Consciousness as well (according to First Contact, of course.)

And in typical Twitter  "hashtags" or trending label protocol, that begat  #firstcontactday or #starwarsday or #maythefourth. #Startrekbirthday seemed a little long for Sept. 6 every year, though.

Now, this year and this week, I'm being told, via TrekRadio and others, that there's a movement afoot to unify behind "Star Trek Day" as a sole hastag/moniker for April 5—only to enlarge the outreach and the viral factor for those mundanes who see it and recognize more easily the franchise, not just an event.

Now, as usual, it's not a lockstep monolith of ideas on this. Some folks resent not saving Sept. 8 for #startrekday, and want to keep April 5 as #firstcontactday. I can see both sides, but I also see that #firstcontactday has limited recognition to a wider audience... nay, even the vast armchair fandom out there who merely sit and watch and enjoy Trek, and not much more beyond their living rooms and dens.

So, I'm all in for the unified #startrekday hastag. Call it #firstcontactday to your Alpha Beta Trekka frat brothers and sisters if you will, too—for it is. But let's think big.

Celebrate in your own burg and check out all the Facebook events—which, of course, touch on Star Trek's greater message of IDIC and world peace and understanding or even reveling in the Other—not fearing it, as our dark sides (and recent politics) would have you do.

In fact, are you having a Star Trek Day event for First Contact? If so, send us your pics at  larry@larrynemecek.com and we'll share them with all.

But don't ever underestimate the power of marketing to keep your passion bigger than a cult.

Look what #ST2009 did for that!



*Thus becoming the second immense event in history ever to happen in that burg. Along with the birth of Brannon Braga.