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The Spectre @lemmy.ml

1y ago

So, do humans stink?

51 comments

Heck, even before you take into account differing xenobiologies, this has precedent on earth; different cultures are often unused to how other cultures smell.
- I remember a Chinese friend, in jest mind you, said that white people smell of slightly sour milk.
  
  oh that's just the daily sour milk skincare routine
  
  I’ve also heard wet dog hair smell.
- I'm sensitive to smells and perfumes so any culture that uses them often is difficult for me. Hey are there scent suppressants I can buy or is that future tech?
  
  There would so be a market for it, although I'd rather have the artificial odor market be killed off instead. Saves a lot of waste as well. (as the air pollution, those smells... yuck)
  
  I knew a guy who couldn’t smell anything for weeks after smoking weed. As a maintenance worker for an apartment complex, he kept that up for years.
  
  Covid renders many people unable to smell or taste things.

T'Pol says so in ENT
- the EMH says so in voyager

Everyone has a smell. Everything has a smell.
You're more likely to find smells you're unfamiliar with potent and obvious.
So, yeah, humans stink, most humans usually smell somewhat like the foods they typically eat, big surprise!
So Vulcans probably stink, too, just differently.
- Wonder if it has to do with how many of us eat meat, Vulcan are vegetarian aren't they?
  
  Yeah, I imagine the body odor of meat eaters to strict vegetarians is particularly... noticeable as it's something totally alien to their diet.
- Just like how everyone has an accent. (Especially the people who think they don’t.)

Yes! Have you met humans?

My pet theory on this is that it's because most vulcans are vegan or vegetarian, and many humans still eat meat and other animal products. The diet thing is confirmed canon, but I can confirm being able to smell... meat smell(?) on people who eat it.
- The meat Federation citizens eat isn't really an animal product. In the Orville, it's actually made explicit that killing an animal for food is regarded as tantamount to murder in the Union.
  
  The reality is it wouldn't matter if it's synthetically produced meat, it's still going to have the same proteins and chemicals as it would if it came from an animal, which is what people (myself included) can smell on people who have consumed them. Eating garlic makes you smell like garlic, eating dairy makes you smell like dairy, eating meat makes you smell like meat.
  I think the implication that we're smelling the concept of sin is very funny though.
  
  Just because it's replicated doesn't mean it's not meat, right?
  
  They kinda imply they eat real meat in enterprise. When do they phase out animals as food?
- it's not a theory, it's fact: the smell is rotting flesh (and dairy for most) and animals on earth rely on it to know if something is nearby them.
- You can smell bloodmouths? What’s the difference? I’ll have to keep a nose out for it

I think Worf mentioned this in TNG
- I think you have it reversed.
  Is that... lilac?

Dude you literally grew up with a human mother get over yourself

I remember reading that some astronauts have reported needing to get used to the smell of Earth again after being in space for a while. Apparently the planet just always smells faintly like shit and we've been ignoring it.

We mostly smell like hair styling products.
- @ThrowawayPermanente @Confidant6198
  Right now I smell a bit like a breakfast burrito.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=yL9Y24ciNWs&pp=ygUObXIgc21pdGggc3dlYXQ%3D

51 comments