Star Trek: Debunking The Red Shirt Myth

gamerant.com:

Star Trek has achieved many things since its creation in the late 1960s, from influencing modern technology, to creating a vast and blossoming universe that has been the inspiration for the plethora of Star Trek TV shows and movies. While the shows have changed a lot over the year, veering away from the classic show that Gene Roddenberry envisioned right from the start, that’s not to say the effect of The Original Series is not felt today.

The good old days of space pioneering is referenced a lot within the modern iterations into the franchise, but they are also referenced a lot with modern day culture. From memes about Spock, to that famous, albeit misquoted, «beam me up Scottie,» they’re all common knowledge to those who haven’t even seen the shows. However, there is one misconception that has spread through the internet like wildfire: A red shirt means death.

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The misconception has produced various memes and even catchphrases to those watching The Original Series, and stems from the perception that if a crew member was wearing a red uniform, they are far more likely to die than the other members of the crew. (This is specific to The Original Series specific, as in later additions into the Star Trek universe, the uniforms changed: red became the color of command positions, with yellow switching to security.) It’s often joked that in a scene where there is an officer in red, they will most likely meet their demise in whatever mission they were being sent on. Fans joke that crew members would tremble in their boots upon hearing they are not only going to be going to fight some deadly Gorn for example, but that they were going to be donning the cursed red