Over at pollventures they've started a new story

[conuly]

based on Jem and the Holograms, a show I never watched even once growing up.

I checked out the Wikipedia page, and I feel like there are a few gaps in my understanding here. Why is there a secret identity thing going on?

Comments

[peoriapeoriawhereart]

I didn't actually watch the show, since reception for the channel it played on was poor; not poor enough to make watching Transformers impossible.

Secret identities were Big; even if you didn't read current comics, secret identity tropes were big with superheroes and would have gotten around even into non-traditional spots.

[conuly]

Secret identities are way too much work.

[erinptah]

It's the "idol has a separate persona from her secret offstage identity" trope. As seen in Hannah Montana and any number of magical-singer anime.

The band has a Sufficiently Advanced Technology hologram machine that disguises them on-stage. It also helps them with their...crime-fighting? mystery-solving? whatever else they get up to. (I checked out the show when it was on Netflix, but only got through an episode or two.)

[conuly]

BUT WHY SO SERIOUS?

[giandujakiss]

do not ask why. just enjoy. especially season 3 when they bring on the chaotic neutral band.

[conuly]

I can't enjoy until I know.

[brokenallbroken]

It was the 80's. The only people who didn't have secret identities were the Scooby gang and the Ghostbusters.

[archersangel]

LOL!

[conuly]

I'm sure there were secret identities aplenty in Scooby-Doo.

[brokenallbroken]

The villains, sure, not the gang.

[imhilien]

I saw the show when I was starting high school in the '80's and loved it. A shy young woman who could turn into a rock star (thanks to hologram tech that disguises her) when she touches her special earrings? Yes, please! :D

Oh, '80's, how did we get through that decade.

[conuly]

Oh, '80's, how did we get through that decade.

Fabulously.

[spikethemuffin]

I think it had something to do with her father. Maybe about him being in the music/ programming biz and being too protective, or... hm... something about how her mother died. I think there was also mystery-solving involved.

[conuly]

Everything back then had mystery solving involved, didn't it?

[spikethemuffin]

Only on television and algebra... but then again, I was in high school at the time.

[zyzyly]

Interesting! I was listening to one of those public radio shows yesterday and they referenced Jem and the Holograms, and what it was about. I previously knew nothing about it.

[bubblesbrnaid]

They never really explained the need for it, you just kinda had to take it as a given.

I suppose if you squinted hard enough, having Jerrica involved in the band and the company might have been some kind of conflict of interest, but that doesn't really make a lot of sense, either.

[conuly]

Huh. Well, at least that's one mystery (sorta) solved.