Trekkie

A Trekkie (a portmanteau of "trek" and "junkie") or Trekker is a fan of the Star Trek franchise, or of specific television series or films within that franchise. The show developed a following shortly after it premiered, with the first fanzine premiering in 1967. The first fan convention took place the year the original series ended.
The degree of Trekkies' devotion has produced conflicted feelings among the cast and crew of the show. Creator Gene Roddenberry initially encouraged the fan participation, but over the years became concerned that some fans treated the show with a quasi-religious zeal as though it were "scripture." While some stars have been vocally critical of the franchise's most devoted fans, others including Sir Patrick Stewart have defended Trekkies.
There has been some disagreement within the fandom as to the distinction between the terms "Trekker" and "Trekkie." Some characterize Trekkers are "more serious" in comparison to the "bubble-headed" Trekkies, while others have chosen the term Trekker to convey that they are "a rational fan." Leonard Nimoy advocated for the use of "Trekker" over "Trekkie". Overall, the term "Trekkie" is more commonly used.
Many early Trekkies were also fans of The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (1964–1968), another show with science fiction elements and a devoted audience. The first Star Trek fanzine, Spockanalia, appeared in September 1967, including the first published fan fiction based on the show. Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry, who was aware of and encouraged such activities, a year later estimated that 10,000 wrote or read fanzines. The mainstream science fiction magazine If published a poem about the Star Trek character Spock, accompanying a Virgil Finlay portrait of the character.
Perhaps the first large gathering of fans occurred in April 1967. When actor Leonard Nimoy appeared as Spock as grand marshal of the Medford Pear Blossom Festival parade in Oregon, he hoped to sign hundreds of autographs but thousands of people appeared; after being rescued by police, "I made sure never to appear publicly again in Vulcan guise", the actor wrote. Another was in January 1968, when more than 200 Caltech students marched to NBC's Burbank, California studio to support Star Trek's renewal.
The first fan convention devoted to the show occurred on 1 March 1969 at the Newark Public Library. Organized by a librarian who was one of the creators of Spockanalia, the "Star Trek Con" did not have celebrity guests but did have "slide shows of 'Trek' aliens, skits and a fan panel to discuss 'The Star Trek Phenomenon.'" Some fans were so devoted that they complained to a Canadian TV station when it preempted an episode in July 1969 for coverage of Apollo 11.
However, the Trekkie phenomenon did not come to the attention of the general public until after the show was cancelled in 1969 and reruns entered syndication. The first widely publicized fan convention occurred in January 1972 at the Statler Hilton Hotel in New York, featuring Roddenberry, Isaac Asimov, and two tons of NASA memorabilia. The organizers expected 500 attendees at the "First International Star Trek Convention" but more than 3,000 came; attendees later described it as "packed" and like "a rush-hour subway train". By then more than 100 fanzines about the show existed, its reruns were syndicated to 125 American TV stations and 60 other countries, and news reports on the convention caused other fans, who had believed themselves to be alone, to organize.
Some actors, such as Nichelle Nichols, were unaware of the size of the show's fandom until the conventions, but major and minor cast members began attending them around the United States. The conventions became so popular that the media cited Beatlemania and Trudeaumania as examples to describe the emerging "cultural phenomenon". 6,000 attended the 1973 New York convention and 15,000 attended in 1974, much larger figures than at older events like the 4,500 at the 32nd Worldcon in 1974. William Shatner compared the 10,000 people who attended a 1975 convention at the Americana Hotel to the largest crowd he had hosted previously, 5,000 people in Central Park. By then the demand from Trekkies was large enough that rival convention organizers began to sue each other. The first UK convention was held in 1974 and featured special guests George Takei and James Doohan. After this, there was an official British convention yearly.
Because Star Trek was set in the future the show did not become dated, and by counterprogramming during the late afternoon or early evening when other stations showed television news it attracted a young audience. The reruns' great popularity—greater than when Star Trek originally aired in prime time—caused Paramount to receive thousands of letters each week demanding the show's return and promising that it would be profitable. (The fans were correct; by the mid-1990s Star Trek—now called within Paramount "the franchise" and its "crown jewel"—had become the studio's single most-important property, and Paramount sponsored its first convention in 1996.)
The entire cast reunited for the first time at an August 1975 Chicago convention that 16,000 attended. "Star Trek" Lives!, an early history and exploration of Trekkie culture published that year, was the first mass-market book to introduce fan fiction and other aspects of fandom to a wide audience. By 1976 there were more than 250 Star Trek clubs, and at least three rival groups organized 25 conventions that attracted thousands to each. While discussing that year whether to name the first Space Shuttle Enterprise, James M. Cannon, Gerald R. Ford's domestic policy advisor, described Trekkies as "one of the most dedicated constituencies in the country". "Unprecedented" crowds visited a 1992 Star Trek exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum, and in 1994, when Star Trek reruns still aired in 94% of the United States, over 400,000 attended 130 conventions. By the late 1990s an estimated two million people in the United States, or about 5% of 35 million weekly Star Trek watchers, were what one author described as "hard-core fans".
The Trek fandom was notably fast to use the World Wide Web. The Guardian's Damien Walter joked that "the 50% of the early world wide web that wasn't porn was made up of Star Trek: The Next Generation fansites".
In 1975, a journalist described Trekkies as "smelling of assembly-line junk food, hugely consumed; the look is of people who consume it, habitually and at length; overfed and undernourished, eruptive of skin and flaccid of form, from the merely soft to the grotesquely obese". He noted their fixation on one subject:
In December 1986, Shatner hosted an episode of Saturday Night Live. In one skit, he played himself as a guest at a Star Trek convention, where the audience focuses on trivial information about the show and Shatner's personal life. The annoyed actor advises them to "get a life". "For crying out loud," Shatner continues, "it's just a TV show!" He asks one Trekkie whether he has "ever kissed a girl". The embarrassed fans ask if, instead of the TV shows, they should focus on the Star Trek films instead. The angry Shatner leaves but because of his contract must return, and tells the Trekkies that they saw a "recreation of the evil Captain Kirk from episode 27, 'The Enemy Within.'"
Although many Star Trek fans found the sketch to be insulting it accurately portrayed Shatner's feelings about Trekkies, which the actor had previously discussed in interviews. Noting that he had worked for years as an actor, Shatner said in 1975 "I can't explain" Trekkies' devotion; "my experience gives me no answer. I can't put it down to anything but an incredible phenomenon". He had met overenthusiastic fans as early as March 1968, when a group attempted to rip Shatner's clothes off as the actor left 30 Rockefeller Plaza. Shatner was slower than others to begin attending conventions, and stopped attending for more than a decade during the 1970s and 1980s. In what Shatner described as one of "so many instances over the years" of fan excess, police captured a man with a gun at a German event before he could find the actor.
The Saturday Night Live segment mentioned many such common stereotypes about Trekkies, including their willingness to buy any Star Trek-related merchandise, obsessive study of trivial details of the show, and inability to have conventional social interactions with others or distinguish between fantasy and reality. Brent Spiner found that some could not accept that the actor who played Data was human, Nimoy warned a journalist to perform the Vulcan salute correctly because "'Star Trek' fans can be scary. If you don't get this right you're going to hear about it", and Roddenberry stated
A Newsweek cover article in December 1986 also cited many such stereotypes, depicting Star Trek fans as overweight and socially maladjusted "kooks" and "crazies". The sketch and articles are representative of many media depictions of Trekkies, with fascination with Star Trek a common metaphor for useless, "fetishistic" obsession with a topic; fans thus often hide their devotion to avoid social stigma. Such depictions have helped popularize a view of devoted fans, not just of Star Trek, as potential fanatics. Reinforced by the well-known acts of violence by John Hinckley Jr. and Mark David Chapman, the sinister, obsessed "fan in the attic" has become a stock character in works such as the films The Fan (1981) and Misery (1990), and the television series Black Mirror.
Patrick Stewart objected when an interviewer described Trekkies as "weird", calling it a "silly thing to say". He added, "How many do you know personally? You couldn't be more wrong." (According to Stewart, however, the actors dislike being called Trekkies and are careful to distinguish between themselves and the Trekkie audience.)
Isaac Asimov said of them, "Trekkies are intelligent, interested, involved people with whom it is a pleasure to be, in any numbers. Why else would they have been involved in Star Trek, an intelligent, interested, and involved show?"
In 1998, the fan studies scholar Henry Jenkins published the journal article "Star Trek Rerun, Reread, Rewritten," in which he defended the behavior of Star Trek fans from an academic angle, arguing that they were "'poachers' of textual meanings who appropriate popular texts and reread them in a fashion that serves different interests." Jenkins' subsequent monograph Textual Poachers (1992), which was written "to participate in the process of redefining the public identity of fandom", also discussed Star Trek fans.
The central trio of Kirk, Spock and McCoy was modeled on classical mythological storytelling. Shatner said:
According to Michael Jindra of the University of Wisconsin-Madison, the show's fandom "has strong affinities with a religious-type movement", with "an origin myth, a set of beliefs, an organization, and some of the most active and creative members to be found anywhere". While he distinguishes between Star Trek fandom and the traditional definition of religion that requires belief in divinity or the supernatural, Jindra compares Star Trek fandom to both "'quasi-religions,' such as Alcoholics Anonymous and New Age groups"—albeit more universal in its appeal and more organized—and civil religion.
As with other faiths, Trekkies find comfort in their worship. Star Trek costume designer William Ware Theiss stated at a convention:
The religious devotion of Star Trek's fans began almost immediately after the show's debut. When Roddenberry previewed the new show at a 1966 science-fiction convention, he and his creation received a rapturous response:
The showing divided the convention into two factions, the "enlightened" who had seen the preview and the "unenlightened" who had not. However, the humanist Roddenberry disliked his role as involuntary prophet of a religion. Although he depended on Trekkies to support future Star Trek projects, Roddenberry stated that
Religious aspects of Star Trek fandom nonetheless grew, according to Jindra, with the show's popularity. Conventions are an opportunity for fans to visit "another world...very much cut off from the real world...You can easily forget your own troubles as well as those of the world", with one convention holding an event in which a newborn baby was "baptized" into the "Temple of Trek" amid chanting. Star Trek museum exhibits, film studios, attractions, and other locations such as Vulcan, Alberta offer opportunities to perform pilgrimages to "our Mecca". A fan astounded Nimoy by asking him to lay his hands on a friend's eyes to heal them. Ethan Peck, a later Spock portrayer, said "When I'm meeting fans, sometimes they're coming to be confirmed, like I'm a priest".
Fandom does not necessarily take the place of preexisting faith, with Christian and New Age adherents both finding support for their worldviews.
Star Trek writer and director Nicholas Meyer compared the show to the Catholic Mass:
Meyer has also said:
From before Star Trek's television début, Roddenberry saw the show as a way of depicting his utopian, idealized vision of the future. According to Andrew V. Kozinets of Northwestern University, many Trekkies identify with Roddenberry's idealism, and use their desire to bring such a future into reality as justification for their participation in and consumption of Star Trek media, activities, and merchandise, often citing the Vulcan philosophy of Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations. Such fans view Star Trek as a way to be with "'my kind of people'" in "'a better world'" where they will not be scorned or mocked despite being part of "stigmatized social categories". Shatner agreed: "If we accept the premise that [the Star Trek story] has a mythological element, then all the stuff about going out into space and meeting new life – trying to explain it and put a human element to it – it’s a hopeful vision. All these things offer hope and imaginative solutions for the future." Richard Lutz wrote:
Rather than "sit[ting] here and wait for the future to happen", local fan groups may serve as service clubs that volunteer at blood drives and food banks. For them,
Despite their common interests fans differ in their levels of—and willingness to display and discuss—their devotion because of the perceived social stigma, and "[o]vercoming the Trekkie stigma entails a form of freedom and self-acceptance that has been compared to homosexual uncloseting." To outsiders the wearing of Starfleet uniforms, usually devalued as "costumes", is a symbol of their preconceptions of and unease with Trekkies. Kozinets cited the example of a debate at a Star Trek fan club's board meeting on whether board members should be required to wear uniforms to public events as an example of "not only...the cultural tensions of acceptance and denial of stigmatized identity, but the articulation and intensification of group meanings that can serve to counterargue stigma". The "vast majority of the club's time was spent discussing previous and upcoming television and movie products, related books, merchandise, and conventions", and club meetings and conventions focused on consumption rather than discussion of current affairs or societal improvement. (Perhaps appropriately, "Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations" originated in a third-season episode, "Is There in Truth No Beauty?", in which Roddenberry inserted a speech by Kirk praising the philosophy and associated medal. The "pointless" speech was, according to Shatner, a "thinly-veiled commercial" for replicas of the medal, which Roddenberry's company Lincoln Enterprises soon sold to fans.)
There is a persistent stereotype that among Trekkies there are many speakers of the constructed Klingon language. The reality is less clear-cut, as some of its most fluent speakers are more language aficionados than people obsessed with Star Trek. Most Trekkies have no more than a basic vocabulary of Klingon, perhaps consisting of a few common words heard innumerable times over the series, while not having much knowledge of Klingon's syntax or precise phonetics.
However, some fans have found that learning the languages of Klingon helps their abilities to enjoy the escapist immersion qualities of the show. They may try to get into character by cos-playing and acting as a member of an alien society by learning the language. The English classical work 'Hamlet' written by William Shakespeare and translated into Klingon has been added to the Folger Shakespeare Library. There are courses and apps to help teach the Klingon language.
As of 2024, according to Akiva Goldsman, in a comparison of Star Trek and Star Wars, the latter's fan base is larger; the Marvel Cinematic Universe's fan base is larger than either. Although more Star Trek content is available on television than ever, Frakes said that of the fans he meets at conventions "very, very, very few" came to the franchise from new shows; "'Star Trek' fans, as we know, are very, very, very loyal — and not very young". Despite fans' stated vision of Star Trek' as a way of celebrating diversity, Kozinets found that among the Trekkies he observed at clubs "most of the members were very similar in age, ethnic origin, and race. Out of about 30 people present at meetings, I noted only two visible minorities".
While many stereotype Star Trek fandom as being mostly young males and more men than women watch Star Trek TV shows, female fans have been important members since the franchise's beginning. The majority of attendees at early conventions were women over the age of 21, which attracted more men to later ones. The two most important early members of fandom were women. Bjo Trimble was among the leaders of the successful effort to persuade NBC to renew the show for a third season, and wrote the first edition of the important early work Star Trek Concordance in 1969. Joan Winston and others on the female-dominated committee organized the initial 1972 New York convention and several later ones; Winston was also one of the three female authors of "Star Trek" Lives!
While men participate in many fandom activities such as writing articles for fan publications and organizing conventions, women historically comprised the large majority of fan club administrators, fanfiction authors, and fanzine editors, and the Mary Sue-like "story premise of a female protagonist aboard the Enterprise who romances one of the Star Trek regulars, [became] very common in fanzine stories". So many single female fanzine editors left fan activities after getting married that one female fanzine editor speculated that the show was a substitute for sex. One scholar speculates that Kirk/Spock slash fiction is a way for women to "openly discuss sexuality in a non-judgmental manner".
Star Trek fans disagree on whether to use the term Trekkie or Trekker. The Oxford English Dictionary dates 'Trekker'—"A (devoted or enthusiastic) fan" of Star Trek— to 1967, stating that it is "sometimes used in preference to trekkie to denote a more serious or committed fan". 'Trekkie' is thus, according to a 1978 journal article, "not an acceptable term to serious fans". The distinction existed as early as May 1970, when the editor of fanzine Deck 6 wrote:
By 1976, media reports on Star Trek conventions acknowledged the two types of fans:
In the TV special Star Trek: 25th Anniversary Special (1991), Leonard Nimoy attempted to settle the issue by stating that "Trekker" is the preferred term. During an appearance on Saturday Night Live to promote the 2009 Star Trek film, Nimoy – seeking to assure Chris Pine and Zachary Quinto, the "new" Kirk and Spock, that most fans would embrace them – initially referred to "Trekkies" before correcting himself and saying "Trekkers," emphasizing the second syllable, with a deadpan delivery throughout that left ambiguous whether this ostensible misstep and correction were indeed accidental or instead intentional and for comic effect. In the documentary Trekkies, Kate Mulgrew stated that Trekkers are the ones "walking with us" while the Trekkies are the ones content to simply sit and watch Star Trek.
The issue is also shown in the film Trekkies 2, in which a Star Trek fan recounts a supposed incident during a Star Trek convention where Gene Roddenberry used the term "trekkies" to describe fans of the show, only to be corrected by a fan that stood up and yelled "Trekkers!" Gene Roddenberry responded with "No, it's 'Trekkies.' I should know – I invented the thing."
Star Trek fans who hold Star Trek: Deep Space Nine to be the best series of the franchise adopted the title of "Niner" following the episode "Take Me Out to the Holosuite", in which Captain Benjamin Sisko formed a baseball team called "The Niners".
There is a phenomenon of defacing the Canadian five-dollar notes that depict 19th century Canadian Prime Minister Wilfrid Laurier, as Laurier's facial features on the CA$5 notes resemble Spock. In 2015, this was done as a tribute to Leonard Nimoy after his death. This was referred to as "Spocking fives".
Star Trek has inspired commercially produced works of literature such as volumes of novels. However, fans have also produced numerous fan fiction productions and literature that seek to explore and continue hypothetical adventures of canonized characters. Seth MacFarlane, creator of The Orville, filmed a fan production as a teenager. Star Trek alumni thespians have occasionally starred in these fan productions, such as Star Trek Continues. The erotic 'slash fiction' genre of fan fiction (Literotica) was rooted in the homoerotic pairings of Kirk and Spock in Star Trek fanzines of the 1970s written by female fans.
As with any immersive subculture fandom, for example, historical reenactors, or supporters of spectator sports, there are formalized bodies within the Trekkie subculture to facilitate immersion into the creation of Gene Roddenberry often by hosting conventions.
A Mecca of the Star Trek fandom is the Albertan township of Vulcan, Alberta. The town has embraced Star Trek themes as part of its community identity. An annual convention is held entitled Vul-con.
There are many Star Trek fan clubs, among the largest being STARFLEET International and the International Federation of Trekkers. Some Trekkies regularly attend Star Trek conventions (called "cons"). In 2003, STARFLEET International was the world's largest Star Trek fan club; as of January 1, 2020, it claimed to have 5,500+ members in 240+ chapters around the world.
Within STARFLEET International (SFI), the local chapters are represented as 'ship' crews.
Eighteen people have served as president of the association since 1974. Upon election, the president is promoted to the fictional rank of Fleet Admiral and is referred to as the "Commander, Starfleet". Since 2004, the president has served a term of three years. Wayne Killough became the association's president on January 1, 2014. April 17, 2016 marked the first time a Commander, Starfleet died while in office. The late Wayne Killough was succeeded by Robin Woodell-Vitasek. As of January 1, 2020, Steven Parmley assumed office as the President of the association.
Since 1990, STARFLEET awards scholarships to post-secondary students who have been a member for a year of up to $1,000 to accomplish Roddenberry's Utopian futurist vision. Applicants must also be involved in organization, as they are required to submit a two-page essay of their involvement. The scholarships are named after the portrayers of characters such as: The James Doohan/Montgomery Scott Engineering & Technology Scholarship, DeForest Kelley/Doctor Leonard McCoy Memorial Medical & Veterinarian Scholarship, Gene Roddenbery Memorial/Sir Patrick Stewart Scholarship for Aspiring Writers and Artists, Space Explorer's Memorial Scholarship, Armin Shimerman/George Takei/LeVar Burton Scholarship for Business, Language Studies, and Education. The funds are contributed by fund-raising crew members.
During the 1996 Whitewater controversy, a bookbindery employee named Barbara Adams served as an alternate juror. During the trial, Adams wore a Star Trek: The Next Generation-style Starfleet Command Section uniform, including a combadge, a phaser, and a tricorder.
Adams was dismissed from the jury for conducting a sidewalk interview with the television program American Journal. The major news media incorrectly reported that she was dismissed for wearing her Starfleet uniform to the trial. However, Adams noted that she had been dismissed because she had spoken to a reporter of American Journal about her Starfleet uniform but not about the trial. Even though nothing she had said was deemed a trial-enclosure violation, the rule had been clearly stated that no juror was to communicate with the press in any manner whatsoever.
Adams stated that the judge at the trial was supportive of her. She said she believed in the principles expressed in Star Trek and found it an alternative to "mindless television" because it promoted tolerance, peace, and faith in mankind. Adams subsequently appeared in the documentaries Trekkies and Trekkies 2.
Trekkies have been parodied in several films, notably the science fiction comedy Galaxy Quest (1999). Actors such as Stewart and Jonathan Frakes have praised the accuracy of its satiric portrayal of a long-canceled science-fiction television series, its cast members, and devoted fans known as "Questerians". The main character Jason Nesmith, representing Shatner, repeats the actor's 1986 "Get a life!" statement when an avid fan asks him about the operation of the fictional vessel.
Star Trek itself has satirized Trekkies' excessive obsession with imaginary characters, through Reginald Barclay and his holodeck addiction.
One episode of Futurama called "Where No Fan Has Gone Before" was dedicated to parodying Trekkies. It included a history whereby Star Trek's fandom had grown into a religion. Eventually, the Church of Star Trek had grown so strong that it needed to be abolished from the Galaxy and even the words "Star Trek" were outlawed.
The romantic comedy Free Enterprise (1999) chronicled the lives of two men who grew up worshipping Star Trek and emulating Captain Kirk. Most of the movie centers on William Shatner, playing a parody of himself, and how the characters wrestle with their relationships to Star Trek.
A Trekkie featured in one episode of the television series The West Wing, during which Josh Lyman confronts the temporary employee over her display of a Star Trek pin in the White House.
The comedy film Fanboys (2009) makes frequent references to Star Trek and the rivalry between Trekkies and Star Wars fans. William Shatner makes a cameo appearance in the film.
The comedy-drama film Please Stand By (2017) chronicles Wendy Welcott, a brilliant young woman with autism and a fixation on Star Trek. She runs away from her group home in an attempt to submit her 450-page script to a Star Trek writing competition at Paramount Pictures.
The Family Guy episode "Not All Dogs Go to Heaven" features a Star Trek convention and many Trekkies. One Trekkie comes to the convention with the mumps, and upon Peter Griffin seeing him, he impulsively pushes his daughter Meg into the Trekkie and forces her to take her picture with him (believing him to be in costume as an alien from Star Trek). Since Meg was not immunized, she catches the mumps from the Trekkie and ends up bedridden.
On the CBS-TV sitcom The Big Bang Theory, the four main male characters are shown to be Trekkies, playing the game of "Klingon Boggle" and resolving disputes using the game of "rock-paper-scissors-lizard-Spock". Wil Wheaton of Star Trek: The Next Generation fame has made multiple guest appearances playing an evil version of himself. LeVar Burton, Brent Spiner, Leonard Nimoy (as a voice actor), William Shatner and George Takei have also appeared on the series.
The films Trekkies (1997) and its sequel Trekkies 2 (2004) chronicled the life of many Trekkies.