Why are Star Trek fans made fun of more than Star Wars fans in popular culture?

[Skipper]

I guess you know what I mean. Every now and then, in some film or TV series there is the classic Trekkie nerd with perhaps a t-shirt and who harasses some unfortunate with minutiae and details from the television series. He sometimes wears a classic series t-shirt or speaks in Klingon.

This classic skit is the epitome of that.

But Star Wars fans are far more numerous and can be as annoying and pedantic as Star Trek fans (if not more, look at the reactions to "The Acolyte"). So why are the former almost always exempt from this constant mockery?

 

[Tosk]

Maybe because Trek fans were already the dorks of society before Star Wars even came along. The job was already taken.

 

[The Wormhole]

Star Trek has a reputation for being intellectual, therefore making its fans look uncool in a society which shames intellect. Star Wars has a reputation for action and adventure, making its fans look cool in the same society.

 

[BillJ]

Star Wars is just more mainstream.

 

[cooleddie74]

I blame the Temporal Cold War.



What?!

 

[trekfan_1]

It's very simple as some have alluded too.
Trek is considered brainy/nerdy. Star Wars is still nerdy but considered more "cool" by mainstream. Trek also had a TV budget cheesier beginnings from the 60s . SW had a mainstream start in the 70s with the first movie being a BIG commercial success. . . Trek has the reputation of having obsessed fans who started/popularized the convention circuits. Trek had a more cult like/rebellious/hipster "us against the world " attitude after the original show got canceled.

Having said all that, I do believe Trek has lessened that reputation over the years. Especially with the emergence of Comic book movies and Comic con being a more common thing among the genre community and with modern-day production values being top notch in the newer shows .

Before anyone says Trek had a big budget for it's time, that may be true but its definitely not as common back then to see expensive shows like we see today.

And as much as Trek has shaken off that cheesy 60s era based ridicule , it's still gets remembered by some as it's origins and remains easy parady fodder.

 

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

The length of time WARSians waited in line to see their 1999 film matched any TREK nerdiness beyond a shadow of a doubt.* Of course, it wasn't really WARS or TREK that achieved nerdy triumph. It was more likely the one-two 2001 punch of HARRY POTTER and THE LORD OF THE RINGS in cinemas.

*(Plus their reference to ''midichloridians,'' which is practically a pilfering from the TREK technobabble manual.)

 

[Frontis]

Star Wars is a fairy tale, Star Trek has a message.

 

[NCC-73515]

Fantasy is more mainstream than Sci-Fi

 

[JoseNoodles]

I guess Trek fans developed a reputation for going hard, like when they protested the first and second attempts at cancelling TOS. But I do recall some segments of Star Wars fandom getting some flack, like cosplayers and fans who wait at midnight for film premieres.

 

[Tosk]

 

[Frontis]

I don't think it's a question of good and bad sience fiction movies. I just never really got into Star Wars and I don't really know why. But I guess it's because I'm a natural born Trekie

 

[JoseNoodles]

 

[The Wormhole]

But I do recall some segments of Star Wars fandom getting some flack, like cosplayers and fans who wait at midnight for film premieres.

Two or three months in advance.

 

[Alexander Corrino]

Star Wars is seen as cool. Star Trek is seen as nerdy.

On the other hand... over here in Germany I've run into so many people who can't tell the two franchises apart (when they saw a TNG crew pic on my desk people used to ask me "oh is that the one with Chewbacca") that I'm not sure about anything anymore.

 

[The Wormhole]

On the other hand... over here in Germany I've run into so many people who can't tell the two franchises apart (when they saw a TNG crew pic on my desk people used to ask me "oh is that the one with Chewbacca") that I'm not sure about anything anymore.

Yeah, that's disturbingly common wherever you are. IIRC, Big Bang Theory even did a joke about it. Or, a good joke I've seen on the matter "I like the Star Trek where Darth Vader saves Middle Earth from the Daleks."

 

[fireproof78]

I guess you know what I mean. Every now and then, in some film or TV series there is the classic Trekkie nerd with perhaps a t-shirt and who harasses some unfortunate with minutiae and details from the television series. He sometimes wears a classic series t-shirt or speaks in Klingon.

One, Star Wars started as a broader appeal. It hit multiple people, while people would hold up Trek as an intellectual pursuit on part with philosophy, rather than a show.

I think that's the biggest different is in attitude. Star Wars fans, as insufferable as they are at least acknowledge a measure of fantasy. Star Trek fans go out of there way to try and make it real, from the starship Enterprise, to obsessing over warp drive and technical schematics and designing all of this a real world science. It feels a little too detached from reality at times.

That and the "Trekkie" jokes played well for laughs even in Sitcoms back in the 80s and films in the 90s.

 

[evilchumlee]

Star Trek has had a much more... "dedicated" fanbase that was pretty visible to the mainstream.

Star Wars fans are nerds, sure... but Star Trek fans tended to take to a different level, walking around in uniforms, etc.

While there's intersection, Star Trek and Star Wars do tend to attract a bit different segments, with Star Trek appealing more to those want to dig deep and analyze every bit of technology and what not... they... we are just different types of people.

Star Trek is considered more nerdy because Star Trek fans are more nerdy.

 

[NCC-73515]

Star Wars is seen as cool. Star Trek is seen as nerdy.

On the other hand... over here in Germany I've run into so many people who can't tell the two franchises apart (when they saw a TNG crew pic on my desk people used to ask me "oh is that the one with Chewbacca") that I'm not sure about anything anymore.

I got so many SW things and was directed to SW stuff when I asked for Trek that I just started asking for Enterprise stuff, cause somehow that was clearer for the regular people

 

[FredH]

I don’t know, are Trek fans really made fun of that much more than Star Wars fans anymore? They were when I was a kid in the 70s, and into the early 90s, sure; but we now live in the timeline where astronaut Samantha Cristoforetti took pictures of herself wearing a Captain Janeway uniform and drinking coffee while floating in the cupola of the International Space Station. If the stigma’s still there, it’s definitely lessened.