When did you first become a fan? (Poll)

[STEPhon IT]

I occasionally see older STAR WARS fans insisting that "nobody" cares about the new SW characters, then I go to conventions and see plenty of younger fans cosplaying as Rey, Kylo, etc. Makes me wonder sometimes when was the last time some of those curmudgeons actually attended a large con attended by fans younger than them. Or even hung out with fans of later generations in person.

Can we honestly say the same thing about Star Trek??? When I was a little girl, my dad and my two brothers would visit Creations Cons and the experience was overwhelming; I mean there were so many people cos playing in every version of Trek at that time, I MEAN it was like 42nd street population of people. Contrast to DISCO's and PICARD era cons and there's more diverse to the co play costumes with other Sci-fi series and anime than back when Star Trek was the majority but the significant thing I notice were the Trek fans were older while the younger folks like myself weren't honoring Michael Burnham or the other All Access characters like Star Wars' Finn, Kylo, and GOAT Rey.

 

[Mojochi]

I was born in 1971 & raised on a steady diet of watching TOS reruns with my dad, whose gone to see every film with me, during its theatrical run. The Horta mindmeld & Uhura's duet with Spock's lute are among some of my earliest childhood memories

We both started falling off watching during Voyager & Enterprise days, & we haven't cared for any of the CBSAA content.

 

[tomalak301]

I started watching TNG when I was 4 years old so about 89, 90. I picked 80s but I guess I should have picked 90s.

 

[Vale]

1990-1991ish, when TNG first started being shown in the UK. I was very young at the time.

 

[Tracy Trek]

I was aware of Trek growing up in the 1970's but did not really become a fan until the original series movies.

 

[Amaris]

The 1980s. My mom was a Trekkie, and got me watching the original series at 4 years old. I remember seeing a TV spot for TNG and running into the kitchen yelling "Mom! They're making a new Star Trek!" and we were both so excited to watch it together. She always loved Encounter at Farpoint, and I love it, too.

 

[Xhiandra]

Sometimes in the 90s. I was born in 1984, and I remember watching a few episodes as a child (random TOS episodes), but I doubt it was before the age of 6.
Later on, as a teenager, some TV channel (Club RTL, I think) started showing Trek. Strangely, they didn't do whole runs after TOS. You had TOS, then TNG for 20 weeks or so, then DS9 for a while, then VOY.
Maybe they had to wait for the dub of the next season.

 

[JonnyQuest037]

Watching '70s reruns of TOS as a kid. My interest in Trek waned after I saw TMP and found it boring, so I skipped seeing TWOK in the theaters. My fandom reignited after I saw TSFS in 1984. (Yep, I saw Spock get resurrected before I saw him get killed off.)

After that, I was all in. Started reading the comics and the novels and watching the reruns more regularly. It helped that the 20th Anniversary happened just a couple years later in 1986.

 

[Hofner]

I became a Star Trek fan the evening of September 8, 1966 when I was six.

Being a fan of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, The Man Trap just blew me away. Voyage didn't go to space and LiS did but they didn't visit many planets, so now there's this show where they were visiting different star systems every week in the coolest looking space ship ever.

The only thing that disappointed me about Star Trek was that it was lacking in the window department.

The Seaview had four honking big windows at the nose. The jupiter 2 wasn't so much but still there were three somewhat big windows. But then ST came in third with just one, albeit big window at the front of the bridge. Come on, the Enterprise is much more agvanced, surely you guys can do better than just one window.

Yes, six year old me was confused by the bridge viewscreen, for a while I didn't know wheter it was a window or a big TV.
My fammily had watched the premire of Star Trek but my elder siblings didn't like the show so through the first two seasons I didn't catch very many episodes and I can't remember what they were, I can only remember Man Trap because it was the first.

But then somehow when the third season came along, I was able to catch two thirds of the episodes on our brand new color TV, I can distinctly remember the episodes. It's probable that Spock's Brain first clued me that the bridge window was a TV but then Methuselah came along and I got confused when Kirk apparently looked into the miniature bridge through the viewscreen.

Alright, I'll stop with the stupid windows.

Anyway, of course I started watching the ST reruns right from the beginning in the early 70s or maybe even late 69, they may have started right away.

So except for TAS, I watched every incarnation after that, the movies, TNG, and so on until Enterprise.

I wish I had watched TAS now but at the time I thought it was strictly for kids and I was too old. I was wrong but somehow I just never got around to watching it since then.

I have watched nothing after ENT, I was going blind and I could barely make out the 4th season, I quit watching TV completely a year or two later.

Robert

 

[Paul755]

early 90’s. The Undiscovered Country was my first exposure.

 

[Truffula]

I think it's likely I started my fandom out by reading the James Blish written versions of the TOS episodes. And the Alan Dean Foster writeups of the Animated Series episodes, too, to a lesser extent.

 

[maneth]

I first saw TOS in reruns in the mid-80s. I liked it, but it wasn't must-see viewing for me. A few years later, TNG came along and I became a fan.

 

[ScottJ85]

I first became a fan in the 90s watching TNG with my dad when it first broadcast here in Australia, and later became a fan of TOS on VHS. I rented the local video shop's tapes so many times they must have fallen apart.

I kind of lost interest some time around Enterprise and the TNG movies, but got back into it with the 2009 movie.

I occasionally see older STAR WARS fans insisting that "nobody" cares about the new SW characters, then I go to conventions and see plenty of younger fans cosplaying as Rey, Kylo, etc. Makes me wonder sometimes when was the last time some of those curmudgeons actually attended a large con attended by fans younger than them. Or even hung out with fans of later generations in person.

I suspect there's a lot of "old thing good new thing bad" going on there like in most fandoms, plus the fact that online the negative voices tend to be the loudest.

 

[Forbin]

From the very beginning for me. I was 9 years old in 1966.

 

[Mondragon]

I became a Star Trek fan the evening of September 8, 1966 when I was six.

Being a fan of Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea and Lost in Space, The Man Trap just blew me away. Voyage didn't go to space and LiS did but they didn't visit many planets, so now there's this show where they were visiting different star systems every week in the coolest looking space ship ever.

The only thing that disappointed me about Star Trek was that it was lacking in the window department.

The Seaview had four honking big windows at the nose. The jupiter 2 wasn't so much but still there were three somewhat big windows. But then ST came in third with just one, albeit big window at the front of the bridge. Come on, the Enterprise is much more agvanced, surely you guys can do better than just one window.

Yes, six year old me was confused by the bridge viewscreen, for a while I didn't know wheter it was a window or a big TV.
My fammily had watched the premire of Star Trek but my elder siblings didn't like the show so through the first two seasons I didn't catch very many episodes and I can't remember what they were, I can only remember Man Trap because it was the first.

But then somehow when the third season came along, I was able to catch two thirds of the episodes on our brand new color TV, I can distinctly remember the episodes. It's probable that Spock's Brain first clued me that the bridge window was a TV but then Methuselah came along and I got confused when Kirk apparently looked into the miniature bridge through the viewscreen.

Alright, I'll stop with the stupid windows.

Anyway, of course I started watching the ST reruns right from the beginning in the early 70s or maybe even late 69, they may have started right away.

So except for TAS, I watched every incarnation after that, the movies, TNG, and so on until Enterprise.

I wish I had watched TAS now but at the time I thought it was strictly for kids and I was too old. I was wrong but somehow I just never got around to watching it since then.

I have watched nothing after ENT, I was going blind and I could barely make out the 4th season, I quit watching TV completely a year or two later.

Robert

Maybe you can still listen to TAS, it reads like a radio drama, with the same actors.

 

[Qonundrum]

Mid-late 70s in reruns. The first episode I distinctly remember is "Return to Tomorrow" with all of the big glowing balls lined up. The sets looked much more expansive back then when compared to reruns in later years...

 

[gweeps]

I was around 9-10 (late 80s w/ TOS repeats on TV and laserdisc), so I'll just pick the 90s 'cause it's close enough.

 

[CorporalClegg]

November 26, 1986.

 

[Richard S. Ta]

I first encountered Star Trek through the 80s and TOS movies. I'd say I liked Star Trek well enough but I wasn't a fan. I can remember catching the early 90s BBC repeats of TOS but I think i only watched as far as Where No Man Has Gone Before and quit. In the 90s, still I was aware of Trek and liked it in principle, but I wasn't a fan.

In the early 00s I picked up TOS Season 1 on DVD and that was it. I watched in order everything from there until Enterprise Season 4 and it took me (appropriately) 5 years to do so.

 

[Qonundrum]

Mid-late 70s in reruns. The first episode I distinctly remember is "Return to Tomorrow" with all of the big glowing balls lined up. The sets looked much more expansive back then when compared to reruns in later years...

I forgot to mention that, also in later re-viewings, I found more to enjoy in the episode. Possessed-Spock is absolutely chilling, the idea of Sargon et al to create mobile bodies again fits in perfectly (though interacting via flesh and blood became an unexpected left-turn for them by the end, leading to a bittersweet ending), and least but not last but not least is Kirk's speech of the week that holds up great.