WTF Am I Doing?
The internet is the great equalizer of our time. With no other resources needed than a computer, basic typing skills, the most tenuous of grasps on basic spelling and grammatical structure and an endless supply of hotpockets, every idiot has access to the biggest, loudest and most annoying megaphones ever created by the human race. I am utilizing that metaphorical megaphone to analyze that wonderful little gif up there. The internet is full of  jewels like that, but this is my personal favorite. Partly because the gaffe is so painfully obvious, partly because I love Star Trek (TOS, of course), partly because we can all relate to that poor guy and his imaginary wheel a bit, and a little bit because my sleep-deprived brain, upon watching it at 2:00 Monday morning, has been attempting for almost an hour now to explain why his seemingly nonsensical actions are actually very real and relevant. I will be focusing on that little bit.

Let’s start with the obvious:

1.       The character in question is a white male…

…and everyone knows that white and male, even 300 years into the future, are the universal symbols for success and authority. This lends him and his actions credibility. Just trust the guy- he’s got this. He was born and bred for it! But if it was Nurse Chapel or, god forbid, Sulu, cranking on that imaginary whatever, we would either see a) a desperate stampede to the medical bay because someone’s clearly laced the food synthesizer with acid again (goddamn space hippies) or b) a squadron of red-shirted security officers slowly advancing on the unsuspecting minority or female (or female minority- we don’t discriminate here) with phasers set to stun and a straight-jacket waiting in the wings.

2.       He’s sporting a gold shirt…

…which is the color worn by command personnel, according to the Wikipedia page solely dedicated to the intricacies and evolution of Starfleet uniforms and my own extensive personal research (all three TOS seasons on DVD, yeeeee). And we can totally trust him because no one in any position of leadership has been wrong about anything, ever. Never. It’s just not a thing that happens. Ever.

3.       His commanding officers just walk on by like it’s no big deal…

…and we can totally trust that at least one of the members of the Kirk/Spock/McCoy/Scotty dream team would notice if one of their crew members were attempting to use a hallucinated piece of equipment. I mean, it’s not like the captain hasn’t demonstrated any problem solving strategies other than sucker punch or seduce, or the science officer’s instruments break down/are misread so often it’s a wonder he doesn’t just break out the spyglass and astrolabe, or the chief medical officer has an almost phobic disdain for every piece of technology that stands between him and the cold vacuum of space, or the chief engineer is only able to keep warp drive working when its malfunction is not necessary for plot development. These guys are at the top of their leagues. They definitely know what they’re doing.

So while we don't know exactly what it is that the gold shirt is doing, we can tell that it's important, in some quantity. It might not be crucial to the plot of that particular episode, or to any episode really, but I like to think that the creative genius that is Gene Roddenberry would not leave something like that without a purpose. Maybe it's like the "book within the dictionary" thing, where you read every 50th or whatever word and it actually tells a fascinating story. Or Rainier Wolfcastle's separate plotline embeded in The Simpsons (number five on the list). All we have to do is gather all the bloopers and seemingly nonsensical moments from the three seasons of TOS, put them together and see what it reveals. Who knows! That could even be the origin of the most recent Star Treks remakes. Trekkie Inception...*nerdgasm*

BOOM

Does someone who doesn't have a week's worth of Russian homework due in 6 hours want to get on this?