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Did you know any non stereotypical sci fi fans in the 1990s?

C

CmdrShep2183

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I heard sci fi and DnD got people shoved into lockers in the 80s and 90s. Did you know any non stereotypical sci fi fans back then? In the 2000s a very physically fit and intelligent US Army ranger told me he was a fan of Babylon 5 and BSG.

What makes Babylon 5 and BSG such good recommendations for military officers?
 
Not sure what you mean by being non-stereotypical. Star Trek nerds with taped glasses and pocket protectors? I was pretty nerdy but was never ostracized or shoved into lockers--except by my friends playing around. Not many people were picked on for being nerds where I grew up in the eighties. Most of the people I knew who loved nerdy things also enjoyed a variety of other activities and nobody got picked on for being a nerd. People who were rude or arrogant and physically weak were the ones who got picked on. There was this one guy who was a DnD nerd who also loved guns and loved to be rude to the jocks because he had a chip on his shoulder, for example. The 80s IRL were nothing like what you see in the movies.
 
I belonged to a Trek club in the '90s, and the members ran the entire gamut of people styles.
 
Tosk said:
I belonged to a Trek club in the '90s, and the members ran the entire gamut of people styles.
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Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that. A lot of people liked Trek and DnD. One of my good friends who didn't like DnD but liked Trek and Science Fiction was also a star athlete on the school Rugby team. They called him The Athenian--because he was also in the top 5% of our graduating class.
 
theenglish said:
Not sure what you mean by being non-stereotypical. Star Trek nerds with taped glasses and pocket protectors? I was pretty nerdy but was never ostracized or shoved into lockers--except by my friends playing around. Not many people were picked on for being nerds where I grew up in the eighties. Most of the people I knew who loved nerdy things also enjoyed a variety of other activities and nobody got picked on for being a nerd. People who were rude or arrogant and physically weak were the ones who got picked on. There was this one guy who was a DnD nerd who also loved guns and loved to be rude to the jocks because he had a chip on his shoulder, for example. The 80s IRL were nothing like what you see in the movies.
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Agreed. I went to High School in the early 80s. Played D&D, loved SW and ST... the whole nine yards... but never really had any problems.
 
I've been into skiffy stuff since the 50s.

I've never met anyone who's been "shoved into a locker."

In the 1970s, sf fans were so self-consciously a community that welcomed nonconformists that lots of folks complained about the rather high concentration of poorly-socialized dickwads.
 
I had a teacher who dismissed any and all sci-fi and fantasy as primitive, childish, and irrelevant XD
 
NCC-73515 said:
I had a teacher who dismissed any and all sci-fi and fantasy as primitive, childish, and irrelevant XD
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More the 80s, but I had a couple of teachers that were very much into it.

Sticking people into lockers wasn't a thing (though we didn't have lockers so....)
 
NCC-73515 said:
I had a teacher who dismissed any and all sci-fi and fantasy as primitive, childish, and irrelevant XD
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Yet they were still required to teach Shakespeare. Honestly, I don't understand the whole Shakespeare thing and why that is required. For one, those plays are old, but more than that, no one talks that way anymore. When was the last time you were in a conversation with someone and asked "Wherefore art thou Romeo".
 
CmdrShep2183 said:
I heard sci fi and DnD got people shoved into lockers in the 80s and 90s. Did you know any non stereotypical sci fi fans back then? In the 2000s a very physically fit and intelligent US Army ranger told me he was a fan of Babylon 5 and BSG.

What makes Babylon 5 and BSG such good recommendations for military officers?
Click to expand...

BSG is military fiction with space ships. Bablyon 5 has a lot of military subplots. Neither are hobbled with Trekkie baggage.
 
I’m in my 50s now. Some of the schoolyard bullies that I knew are living miserable lives now, and others are dead. Justice does prevail, you just have to be patient.
 
Most of my sci-fi fan friends in the 80's, 90's and even now were/are long haired rock and metal fans.
 
tomalak301 said:
Yet they were still required to teach Shakespeare. Honestly, I don't understand the whole Shakespeare thing and why that is required. For one, those plays are old, but more than that, no one talks that way anymore. When was the last time you were in a conversation with someone and asked "Wherefore art thou Romeo".
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When we read Kafka's Metamorphosis, where the protagonist wakes up as a giant bug one day and tries to adjust to his new body while everyone else is horrified, the teacher asked if we know any similar stories. I mentioned The Fly, she said what's that, and I began explaining that there's a scientist who invents a transporter... at that point already, she rolled her eyes, and everyone in class sighed with her. To her, Kafka's bug story was high literature, but a 50s/80s sci-fi classic was boring.
She also found Michael Crichton's books shallow and low-quality.
Another teacher wanted to be nice and gave me Star Wars articles she cut out of magazines, cause she thought it's the same as Trek XD
 
I did get picked on in school, but I think it was more because of my overall difficulties socializing than specifically because I was into Star Trek, Star Wars, ect. I was never really picked on because of that stuff specifically.
 
I remember being picked on in junior high, back in the early seventies, because I was a nerdy bookworm in general, but I don't remember anybody ever giving me hard time about liking STAR TREK in particular.

Granted, this was after TOS and before TMP, so Trek was kinda dormant at the time, aside from the ubiquitous syndicated reruns. Babylon-5 and Battlestar Galactica and even Star Wars were still down the road. Nor was I ever picked on for liking Logan's Run or Planet of the Apes.

As nearly as I can tell, my classmates mostly remember me as this smart, weird kid who was constantly doodling vampires and werewolves in his notebooks. :)
 
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