When did people start calling Star Trek for Nerds?

[IronMaiden]

Hello
I got a question, when did it start when people started to call anyone that likes Star Trek a nerd, did it start with TOS or Next Gen?

 

[Tosk]

Day one.

 

[Forbin]

Day one.

This.

 

[bbjeg]

That's the assumption people make of viewers of the science fiction genre in general, really. Even if you weren't a nerd, if you watched enough sci-fi (fantasy excluded), you'd probably become one.

 

[BK613]

Day one.

This.

Agree.

 

[Christopher]

Day one.

Yes, absolutely. Science fiction fans were far, far more socially ostracized in the 1960s-70s than they are today. Star Trek was one of the things that began the long process of making SF respectable and mainstream, but it took a very long time. It took the huge success of the Lucas/Spielberg ouevre, the success of ST:TNG, and most of all the maturation of a generation that grew up on Star Trek and Star Wars. When I was growing up in the '70s, being a Trek fan was an embarrassing thing, something you didn't want to admit to your classmates lest you be bullied and scorned. Not that it made much difference for me, since I was always a social outcast. But it wasn't until high school in the '80s that I really found any fellow fans, and most of them were fellow nerds and social outcasts. Now, when I go to my high school reunions and tell them I write Star Trek novels, I get admiration.

Of course, Star Trek is still considered to be for nerds, but we live in an era where nerds themselves have become mainstream -- when we have nerds as the top billionaires, as celebrities and trendsetters, and even as the President of the United States.

 

[Kilana2]

Honestly, I don´t bother anymore. People who point a finger at me for watching and reading SciFi are often the same who watch "Bachelor" or "I´m a celebrity - get me out of here" (GER/UK Reality Trash). This shit is big in Germany, but I switch off my TV.

When Dr. Hubert Zitt did his lecture about Time Travel several weeks ago at the local university, the large auditorium was crowded. Some people wore even uniforms or Spock ears.

 

[bbjeg]

By the way, there are treky geeks and dorks too (and that thread always deserves a bump).

 

[Sparkle Fabulosa]

It's becoming more accepted in society. Look at how popular The Big Bang Theory is.

 

[BillJ]

September 9, 1966?

 

[Vandervecken]

It's becoming more accepted in society. Look at how popular The Big Bang Theory is.

And it seemed to me that near the end of the BSG reboot, everyone was asking and speculating on who the 5th of the Final Five was (I was in the Ellen corner, btw; who else who was gone from the show had the "wow" factor? That was all I needed). People who up to that point had no interest in SF, and maybe didn't after, were SO into it.

Unfortunately--to my mind, anyway--Rowlings/Harry Potter did this for fantasy, when her stuff is really pretty derivative and old hat, and we already had decades of great fantasy literature that, at least to my mind, should have been the stuff to push fantasy into the mainstream.

 

[IronMaiden]

My friend is always saying don't do that thing from Star Trek, and say it to everyone so they can hear, but anyway we made a deal as we are friends and he said we won't talk about anything Star Trek.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Before Star Trek it was scifi literature. Nerds were reading Asimov long before they were watching Trek.

I think the reason scifi fans were ostracized has to do with classical gender roles. Men must act macho and manly, be interested in sports, spend their time making themselves appealing to women and preparing for a financially dominant career. The pursuit of science fiction does not further these goals that men are 'supposed' to have, and to the mind of a macho asshole, is therefore a sign of weakness.

The reason nerdiness is becoming more mainstream now is that cultural standards of adhering to gender roles have changed.

 

[eyeresist]

Sadly, the underlying prejudice against nerds remains. I like to watch TMZ, and they had a story on Markus Persson (creator of Minecraft) buying a $70 million house out from under Jay-Z and Beyonce. Cue two minutes of nerd jokes that were old in the eighties...

Personally, I am more a dweeb than a nerd.

 

[Kirby]

It's funny, I was a sophomore in college when TNG started, and the show was on Saturday nights at 7:00. Our dorm's TV room was PACKED with people every Saturday. Not just your stereotypical nerds, but regular guys, and girls. It was great. And that was just season 1.

 

[Cyke101]

This thread reminds me of Noel Shempsky, a recurring character on Frasier. He was the stereotypical Trekkie, and beyond. He was fluent in Klingon (sometimes even the show's trademark chapter-title cards were in Klingon!), extremely geeky, and does the Vulcan salute. William Shatner even has a restraining order on the guy.

But in the larger scheme, his character is all the funnier for it, once you realize the show's creators and producers are Trekkies, too. And then of course, Kelsey Grammer was on TNG and he lead a main cast of Trekkies, too, as evidenced by that Voyager Audition Skit with Mulgrew.

 

[Kirby]

^^ The one where Frasier ends up making his son's Bar Mitzvah speech in Klingon instead of Hebrew thanks to Noel is one of my favorite episodes of TV ever. Also, it was a nice touch that Freddie's friend was named Jeremy Berman.
A little bit of geek is a nice seasoning to life, we all have our things that we really get into and that's a good thing to embrace.

 

[urbandefault]

In the 70s, if you wanted a pretty girl in your class to like you, there was no way under the sun you'd mention that you liked Trek.

"You like Star Trek???? LOL"

And that's the way it was.

 

[bbjeg]

^That continued into the mid nineties, at least from my prospective.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

In the 90s, The Simpsons paired Comic Book Guy up with a 90 year old woman. In the 10s, they paired him up with a hot young Asian girl.