kylo:
i wish media would stop perpetuating the name “trekker”. never in my career have i met anyone who prefers that title over “trekkie”
Organized Trek fandom was started by women, especially the letter writing campaign that convinced NBC to give the show its third season.
In the 1970s many male fans felt “Trekkies” was too feminine (also disturbingly close to “Spockies” which I kid you not was a real thing) so the backlash was to try forcing Trekker into the vernacular. Which was more “masculine” sounding and also similar to the male centric Trucker fandom which also was a thing that existed in the 1970s. Nothing more testosteroney than big rigs and CB radios, amirite fellas?!
Anyway, it never caught on. Thank god.
Oh my God, we’ll that explains the story I just added to this exact post, THANK YOU.
Last year, I went to RICC dressed as Ro Laren. This was literally the first thing that happened when I finally got past the line:
two guys come up from out of nowhere and hug me. “Aww! Star Trek! Awesome!” they said.
Me: Yeah…I’m a huge trekkie.
Guys: Oh. You must mean “trekker.” that’s the correct term that fans preferblahblahblah
Me: No. I meant trekkie.
I can’t believe that they tried to mansplain the word trekkie to me. like, HONESTLY. I know what I’m about.
Need to look this up on fanlore