Trekkie
Trekkie
noun (pl. Trekkies) informal A  of the US science fiction television program Star Trek

Trekkies are forward looking people.
Robert Justman, interview on the TNG Season 1 DVD special feature "The Beginning".

There is an  about the term Trekker which in a sense means the same as trekkie, i.e. fan of the Star Trek phenomenon in all its iterations, although the differences in terms are also debated among trekkies/trekkers. As a collective, trekkies/trekkers are known as "Star Trek fandom", in parlance, especially among themselves, often contracted to "Trekdom".

Generic observations

 The term "Trekkie" seems to be the one most used in English-speaking countries, but has also become increasingly adopted in non-English speaking countries.
 One could argue that Trekkies could be so-called space-travelers: those interested (trivially) in space travel, but there is also a good chance Trekkies are simply enjoying the show, just for fun.
 The term "Trekker" is preferred by some Star Trek fans, as the term "Trekkie" is perceived to be a derogatory (or a diminutive one at best when used by non-fan family members) term, especially by the non-fan society at large, who consider Trekkies as being obsessive in their fandom. One joke – and definition they themselves adhere to – is that Trekkers, habitually preferring to keep their fandom more low-key, "know it's just a TV show" versus Trekkies, in reference to William Shatner's famous "Get a Life!" rant on Saturday Night Live. In response however, many of the more die-hard fans have taken a defiant stance against a wary outside world by embracing the term "Trekkie" as a "", as clearly evidenced by the 1997 docu-comedy Trekkies and its 2004 follow-up Trekkies 2.
According to the Trekkies 2, Gene Roddenberry once stated at a Star Trek convention in response to a "Trekkers!" call-out from the crowd, "No. It's Trekkies. I should know. I invented it." The differences sometimes perceived among themselves notwithstanding, Trekkers and Trekkies alike presented, until the advent of  specifically, a more-or-less unified "us-against-them" front to the outside world.
In the 2014, season five episode "Bid Strong and Prosper" of the reality show Storage Wars, Gabriel Koerner, who made a cameo appearance in the episode as the spokesperson of a three-person strong Trekkie commitee – all clad in their Star Trek attire– , offered up an alternative definition of the dichotomy; according to them, a "Trekkie" is a Original Series fan, whereas a "Trekker" is a The Next Generation fan.
 A (sub-)category of fans more related to  and called "Niners", also exists.
 The by non-fan society perceived status of Trekkies as societal misfits is amply demonstrated by a plethora of Hollywood productions in which – typically in a derogatory manner and not rarely viciously so, the assumed sexual inadequacy of Trekkies in particular as exemplified by the quoted Saturday Night Live, Dharma & Greg and The Big Bang Theory episodes – fun is poked at the fans, the hugely popular sitcom The Big Bang Theory (a later production from the Dharma & Greg creators, incidentally) having become the most visible and best known one.Incidentally, in the above referenced Storage Wars episode, primary cast member Jarrod Schulz was utterly unable to refrain himself from viciously ridiculing, insulting and belittling the Star Trek fanbase throughout the entire episode, even expressing his disdain straight into the face of Koerner's three-Trekkie team at the end of the episode.
 Both the Dharma & Greg quote as well as The Big Bang Theory in general touched upon the fact, that Trekdom is commonly believed by the non-fan society to be almost exclusively composed of (white) males. While it is undeniable that in science-fiction fandoms in general, males are over-represented – hence the misconception – , the two Trekkies documentaries and several registrations of Star Trek conventions included in the special features on home video formats provide proof positive that people of color and females form a substantial contingent of Trekdom as well. Their respective ranks were strengthened by their favorable reception of  (headed by an Afro-American male commander) and  (headed by a female captain). The gross generalization of assuming (biased) white male dominance, played a substantial part in the assessment of (media) critics, when thrashing the critical part of Trekdom for their negative reception of Star Trek Discovery.
A first hour female fan of considerable note had been Bjo Trimble, in the process arguably becoming not only the best-known Star Trek fan, but the archetypal "Trekkie" as well, and has for decades been the most sought-out person by (non-fan) media reporters wanting to report on Trekdom. Another notable early female fan had been Millicent Wise, who was instrumental in bringing Leonard Nimoy back into the franchise fold as Spock in  – directed by her husband – against the wishes of studio executives, Michael Eisner in particular. Both women were rewarded for their efforts with cameo appearances in the film. A third example concerned Susan Sackett, likewise making a cameo appearance in the film, who went on to become a Star Trek author, as well as the personal assistant of Gene Roddenberry for the remainder of his life.
 The 1999 film Galaxy Quest, itself an insightful satire on the entire Star Trek phenomenon, is a very rare example of a major Hollywood production which, while witty, treated the phenomenon with respect. In effect, Jean-Luc Picard performer Patrick Stewart at first refused to see the film, because he was falsely led to believe that the film ridiculed and insulted the fanbase before he was informed to the contrary by co-star Jonathan Frakes.  Ironically, DreamWorks, the studio the film was produced for, had expected a slapstick kind of comedy purposely ridiculing and thrashing Star Trek and its fans, but the film's producers were of decidedly different mind, craftily making use of the studio's preoccupation with another very expensive film project, Gladiator. Too late do anything about it, DreamWorks went ahead nonetheless to market the film as they had expected it to be, explaining its belated adoption by Trekdom, being coined "the best Star Trek movie" by Wil Wheaton, and rise to cult status. (Never Surrender: A Galaxy Quest Documentary, 2019)
 While "" is a generic, commonly used expression in the English language to indicate a person with a single-minded obsession with any subject matter in a derogatory and insulting manner, it is arguably also the second most used term by the non-fan society to indicate Star Trek fans in similar vein, as shown by its recurrent use as such in shows like, again, The Big Bang Theory.
The Star Trek franchise itself has indeed acknowledged this state of affairs when it had, during the production of Discoverys second season, an one-minute homage clip made for streaming on the Apple TV+ app – also featured in a Carpool Karaoke episode (Season 2, Episode 11, 31 January 2019) – in which the uniform-clad Discovery primary cast were singing a song (adapted from a song featured in the musical Rent) on its bridge set, profusely thanking the "nerds" – "nerds" being emphasized with flashy, sing-along captions, repeatedly – for keeping the franchise alive for all these decades. Its reception having been mixed at best, Discovery had turned out to be a divisive show, turning fans against each other – thereby succeeding where decades of ridicule from the outside world had not; fracturing the fanbase. And as the equally divided reactions to this supposedly well-meant clip have shown, Discovery fans loved the homage, whereas the critical fans took offense, considering it a derogatory slur, and an intentional insulting one at that in their opinion – with some even interpreting it to be a franchise lash-back for their critical reception of the show.    The by these fans as offensive perceived clip has not been included in any of the special features of the later released second season home video formats. Nonetheless, the mere fact that the clip was produced at all, is for all intent and purposes the formal confirmation that the franchise has appointed the term "nerd" as their official moniker for the Star Trek fan.
 As has been the case with "Trekkie", a small part of fandom wears "nerd" as a badge of honor (conceivably a contributing factor to the franchise's misguided formal stance), but the majority of these fans appear to prefer the similar, but less offensive sounding expression "", as it is for example the expression of choice of Wil Wheaton as evidenced by his book Just a Geek – even though he consistently addressed his fellow fans with the "officially" endorsed "nerds" in , most likely enforced by the franchise to do so. Both Robert Meyer Burnett and Mark A. Altman are self-professed and unapologetic "Star Trek geeks" and who in effect wrote a quasi-autobiographical Star Trek parody, the 1999 film , in which "über-fans", played by actors who served as proxys for the writers, unexpectedly meet their idol William Shatner, who actually played a fictionalized version of himself in the film.
 The political weight of the Star Trek fans made it possible to impose the name Enterprise for the first American space shuttle built for the NASA (OV-101), whereas this one was to be called Constitution in the beginning, after a massive campaign of letters organized by the aforementioned Bjo Trimble produced more than 200,000 requests to President .
 A considerable part of Trekdom places great importance and value on adherence to canon as established onscreen and sees (too much) deviation from it as a serious violation. This played a substantial part in the fan criticism of , and in even greater measure still in their critical reception of Discovery. Former VAM producer (and Original Series fan) Robert Meyer Burnett sided with those fans in regard to the latter series, coining himself a "canonista". 
 A term closely related to, and associated with the "Trekdom" part mentioned in the preceding point, is "", a contraction of "fan" and "canon", and used to signify widely and steadfastly held beliefs by fans that is not substantiated by canon.
 While rival science fiction franchises have very similar fandoms, the main ones, Star Wars and Battlestar Galactica do not have generally accepted nicknames for their fans, with the intended nickname "" failing to gain a foothold for the Stargate franchise. Some of the smaller, and somewhat in memory receded, ones did however; Babylon 5 fans for example were occasionally referred to as "", whereas the more fanatical ones from Firefly referred to themselves as "". American fans of the older and still running British Doctor Who franchise used to call themselves "", while the home-grown fans never did.

Star Trek production staff "Trekkies"
Many production staffers on the Star Trek franchise were self professed "Trekkies" (or "Trekkers", depending on one's point of view) and in the 1970s, early 1980's that was considered an asset as  Art Director Richard Taylor recalled, "To design the models for the show I hired an exceptional team of designers. First and foremost was Andy Probert. Andy was a true Star Trek expert and knew all the mythology of the series. I on the other hand was not a Star Trek fan." (Star Trek: Creating the Enterprise, p. 104) It even held true to some extent as late as 2009 when Conceptual Illustrator John Eaves became the only regular production staffer who had worked on prime universe Star Trek productions – excepting Industrial Light & Magic's staffers, who had previously worked on the Star Trek franchise and were still in the employment of the company at the time – to be officially hired and credited for J.J. Abrams' re-imagined . Though Abrams steered clear from hiring any former Star Trek staffers in order to be as unencumbered as possible for his vision on the franchise, he was aware that some consistency needed to be observed, or as Production Designer Scott Chambliss has put it, "I brought John in because he knew the story and lore, what should and shouldn't be done. The ships in the Starfleet Armada to go to Vulcan were influenced by John's knowledge." (Star Trek - The Art of the Film, p. 58)

However, as time progressed, being a fan was increasingly frowned upon by studio executives and show producers alike, afraid of being bogged down creatively by vocal, highly knowledgeable "Trekkies". This indeed had already been somewhat of an issue in Probert's case for The Motion Picture as far as his non-fan colleagues were concerned. Production Coordinator Michelle Small recalled at the time, "We had one person working with us at Abel whom I was told to literally keep away from [by] Magicam. He was changing the design of the Enterprise, he was a stickler for detail, a stickler for accuracy. He was the only real Trekkie on the film and he really didn't quite understood that this was a movie, he wasn't redesigning a NASA spaceship, this was somebody's made-up design of a spaceship, and just because they'd put out books of the Federation didn't mean that the ship had to look exactly like the old Enterprise. And if you take a look at the old, original Enterprise, it's a very simple design. Besides, as Harold said, it's supposed to be a redesigned Enterprise in the script, so that should explain any deviations from the original. Well, this was just another manifestation of aberrated behavior, and my job was to keep these little aberrations contained." This was even acknowledged by Probert himself to some extent when elaborated on his behavior, "There was usually a joint groan that would emanate from the Robert Abel modelers as I entered the Seward shop everyday [note: the company were the completed Magicam models were sent for final detailing], because they knew I would discover another level of detail that hadn't been approached and needed closer attention. But I think it's quite evident in the final results that the modelers outdid themselves." (Return to Tomorrow - The Filming of Star Trek: The Motion Picture, pp. 103, 201-202) A decade later, the consummate Star Trek fan Probert would actually resign his illustrator position after the first season of  over perceived violations of Star Trek-continuity.

Production staff "Trekdom" in Berman-era Star Trek
Makeup Artist and Production Illustrator Doug Drexler, who in effect started out in Star Trek fandom, has elaborated in the Trek Radio Q&A interview session of 22 January 2011, "If you were a rabid fan, you know, you kept it low key. The thing was, that when I came on The Next Generation, I wasn't just, I'm not saying I was anything special or anything, I had just come from Dick Tracy. So I wasn't really concerned about, if I was just a day player or makeup artist, if you acted like a geeky fan they wouldn't ask you back. But because I had just got done working with Warren Beatty, and stuff like that and all these actors, that they turned a blind eye to me being that way. And I actually would gush to the actors the next day after a show, you know, and act like a gushy fan. And Mike warned me, I think, a couple of times, but I was, "I don't care."" 

How sensitive producers and executives were on this issue by then, was discovered by Drexler in an incident, occurring when he sought out Mike Okuda for a position on the art department staff,
"When TNG premiered, I was blown away by the production design. One thing that really impressed me was the new LCARS interface prominently displayed all over this new amazing starship. It was clean, direct, and ingenious. I wondered if it was done by that guy Bob was talking about? That guy who came all the way from Hawaii? Man, if it is, he is not just a lucky cat, but he is one COOL cat. Turns out he was both.

"Dick Tracy had finished up, and I knew what I had to do. I made a bee line for Paramount Pictures and Trek makeup guru Mike Westmore. TNG was starting up its third season, it had found it’s legs, and there was no way the Enterprise was leaving spacedock with out me this time, and it didn’t. Mike Westmore and I liked each other instantly, and I was on board. The first week I was there, I saw Mike Okuda on stage, getting a cup of coffee at the craft service table. I think I probably embarrassed him because I gushed like a little kid over his brilliant work. I sensed that the unbridled praise made him a little uncomfortable. Over the next few years I got to know Mike, Rick, and Richard James, and made regular visits to the rarified air of the art department. I knew that this was were I had to be. This was the place. One day during the fifth season I approached Mike about what the odds were of making the jump to the art department. I started off with my usual enthusiasm for Star Trek. Mike looked around nervously and motioned me to follow him down the curved corridors of the Enterprise D. He was leading me away from ears that might overhear our conversation. I did not know yet that being branded as a fan by the guys who inherited the show from R&J could be detrimental. At the far end of the corridor, and away from the production crew, was the entrance to the ship’s hangar bay. Mike slipped his finger tips between the two heavy doors, and pried them apart revealing the new shuttle with its aft gangway hatch open.

"I stepped inside the hangar and looked around wide eyed, as Mike dragged the heavy doors of the shuttle bay closed with a thump. This was truly impressive, the bay was complete and enclosed. It was fully immersive, and with that beautiful shuttle sitting there, I WAS on board my dream ship. Mike tapped my arm and quietly motioned me into shutlecraft. He took the pilot seat, and I took the copilot seat. As I peered through the canopy of the craft, out into the enclosed bay, the situation went from immersive to immersive within immersive. I’ll never forget that day. Mike and I spoke about what the odds were of me getting into the art department (pretty slim). We also spoke freely as fans of the show for the first time. It occurred to me later that we had unwittingly recreated a scene from  where Bowman, and Poole shut themselves into one of the Discoveys pods to evade HAL's prying ears." 

As to underscore Drexler's statements, Scenic Artist Geoffrey Mandel noted in this regard in 2002, "The absolute WORST way to get a job at Star Trek is to tell them that you’re a Star Trek fan! When they started Enterprise, they made a conscious decision to bring in some new blood, and not just round up the usual suspects; but in practice, it meant that fans like Rick Sternbach, Tim Earls and myself weren’t asked back. However, a number of fans who had worked on DS9 and had been taking an extended leave of absence came back when Enterprise started, so the total number of Star Trek fans stayed about the same."  Yet another production staff fan, Visual Effects Supervisor Ronald B. Moore, fully agreed with Mandel, "It is okay to be a fan of a show or an actor but if you want to work in the business it is probably best to keep it low-key. I have seen some people go nuts when confronted by a star, director or some other person they admire. In some cases it cost them their jobs. Be professional and you might just earn their respect. If you fawn over them you certainly will not." (Flying Starships, p. 125) Another illustrative incident in this respect, also involving Drexler, occurred when he helped out Mike Okuda applying signage graphics onto the Voyager studio model, though he was formally forbidden to do so as he was officially part of the  team.  producer Wendy Neuss caught him in the act, but, as Drexler fondly recalled, "BUSTED! My heart was in my throat as Wendy surveyed our work. She did not make eye contact with me, and spoke only to Okuda. She seemed quite pleased, and Mike thanked her for coming out in the middle of the night to view the finished project. As Wendy headed for the door, she turned, looked at me, and said, "…and thank YOU, whoever you are," and gave me a wink. With that, she dissapeared into the cool California night. Without a word, I looked at Mike wide eyed. "It’s ok," he smiled, "she’s one of us"."  Drexler's account had already been related eleven years earlier by Stephen Edward Poe in his 1998 reference book, A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager (p. 325), but at the time Drexler's name could not be divulged, due to the studio's policy.

While not discernible at the time, it was exactly the production Mandel referred to, , due to its chosen visual and story directions by executives and producers, that has apparently raised tension levels between the creative (fan) production staff and "management" and producers, as was evidenced on several internet blog entries after-the-fact. The usually very diplomatic Drexler (coincidentally, one of Mandel's production staffers who had taken "an extended leave of absence") himself did slip a remark, concerning the design of the , that he liked "(…) the NX-01, even though it was a frustrating experience. I'm a "canon" kind of guy. I would have liked to have seen the Daedalus style ship. You know…the sphere instead of saucer. The producers wanted it to be a saucer because they wanted it "recognizable". , to which Mandel added, "Having been around then, I also know that [the NX-class designers] Doug Drexler and John Eaves did exactly what the producers asked them to."  One of the more outspoken critics afterwards, was yet another Original Series fan production staffer, Foundation Imaging's Robert Bonchune, who stated on the decision to have the bird-of prey graphic from the Romulan Bird-of-Prey (22nd century) removed in Enterprises episode , "Oh and as for the BOP drawing underneath, it was rejected for no other reason than, once again, contempt for the Trek, the fans and the Original Series by …uh."management"…you know who they are. ;-) (Oh and it wasn’t there idea, that didn’t help…)"  , and even more vehemently as late as 2014, "Ahhh Producers.....you showed those fans who's boss didn't ya?"  

Still, Stand-in Performer Guy Vardaman, also a fan, and who chimed in on Drexler's Q&A session, tried to put the matter somewhat in perspective, "Someone like Mike Okuda and Rick Sternbach, they could be fans, out of the closet as it were, because they were professionals, they got their jobs done. And by the way, it was handy sometimes to have a Star Trek fan around when they said "How do we do this?" or "What was done before?" or "How do we pronounce Berthold rays?". It was handy, so it was good to have people, like yourself, that were professional enough that if someone like me came out and said "You know, I actually did watch Star Trek as a kid and I am a fan", I wasn't immediately escorted off the set. They kind off went, "Well you've been here for awhile, and we got a couple of other guys who have admitted to that "disease" and it seems to be okay." So I want to thank you for that." To which Drexler added, "We were really the "keepers of the flame", and defended as much as we could, whenever we could.(…) And if you're lucky enough to be someone that takes things seriously, you can help keep things on track." Having had "keepers of the flame" around though, proved exceptionally useful for the production of the acclaimed homage episodes ,  and . The "Relics" episode in particular, caused many production staff fans to come "out of the closet", as the episode writer Ronald D. Moore (who, incidentally, was one himself also, and therefore the main reason why he took over the writing chore for the episode from Brannon Braga, who was not) has also put it, further stating, "A lot of people put in a lot of extra effort and didn't get paid for it and put in a lot of extra hours to make that possible and just bit the bullet because they wanted to do the scene." (Cinefantastique, Vol. 24, issue 3/4, p. 26)

The second, very practical, reason for the studios of being hesitant to hire fans as staff, was the fear of property theft by fans, that actually did occur on occasion throughout the entire run of the franchise, hand held props being the most frequently stolen, or as Archivist Penny Juday has dryly put it, when discussing an early The Next Generation phaser rifle, "These are becoming harder and harder to find, as they have disappeared over the years, as you can imagine!" (TNG Season 2 DVD – special feature, "Inside Starfleet Archives"). In several instances it did even interfere with production. The theft of the Type 18 shuttlepod studio model for example, necessitated the build of a CGI model, which became the Chaffee-type shuttlepod, at the eleventh hour. The theft of The Next Generation'''s captain's chairs on two occasions, necessitating the construction of new ones for both  and , was another example, and apart from being some of the more spectacular ones, also some of the more costly, the replacement for the latter theft reportedly coming in at a cost of US$15,000.  Leaking behind-the-scenes information during production to the outside world was another aspect of the studio's fear, which has, for example, resulted in the premature publication of the unlicensed The 24th Century Technical Manual.

Nevertheless, one 1990 incident in particular, has proven to be the watershed event for the studio to harden their stance on hiring fans as staff, as Vardaman and Drexler recalled in the Q&A session, "[Drexler:]They also had serious problems, like, I remember there was a videotape that was made by, I am not going to mention any names, of someone who snug onto the stage wearing a Starfleet uniform, and took videos of himself and going through the sets and giving a tour of the ship. [Vardaman:] And breaking the clam shell in sickbay and messed up our shooting schedule the next day, do you remember that? [Drexler:] Yeah, yes I remember, and that, that really set the precedent." Despite being hesitant to divulge names, the identity of Drexler's person in question, Greg R. Stone, was, in effect, already known for quite some time in the Star Trek fan-community, as his video, in which he identified himself, had, on and off, been circulating on the internet for years.  Stone, an on-call studio staffer since The Next Generations first season, and already been involved in leaking behind-the-scenes information the year previously (some of which published in the aforementioned The 24th Century Technical Manual), has not been working for the studio since.

Yet, 2004 saw a remarkable all-out reversal of the franchise's stance, for which Enterprise proved to be yet again the primary agent. Though having started out with a relatively large audience, the series quickly lost viewer-ship and inspired intense criticism of both the series and its show runners Rick Berman and Brannon Braga, with the fan community vocally criticizing perceived violations in established continuity, coming close to disavowing Enterprise as being Star Trek altogether.  With the approach of the end of the third season of Enterprise, Paramount and its television network UPN indicated its cancellation and the apparent end of Berman's tenure as the overseer of Star Trek productions. Though remaining credited, both Berman and Braga were indeed effectively relinquished from their position by the franchise at the end of the third season, and all pretenses of not hiring fans as production staff were entirely dropped when their places as show runners were de facto filled for the last season by openly Original Series fans Manny Coto and Mike Sussman in particular. Under their tenure much of the perceived continuity violations was redressed, aided by writers such as Judith & Garfield Reeves-Stevens, who, also fans and like them, had an equally thorough understanding of original Star Trek lore. The season as a whole was generally well received – though it did not save the series, as its cancellation had been already decided upon –, and it was commonly understood that it were their efforts, together with those "keepers of the flame" such as Curry, Moore, Drexler and Okuda already working on the show, that had, at least as far as the fan community was concerned, "saved" the Star Trek status of the series within the franchise.

Yet, when the ENT Season 4 Blu-ray set was released in 2014, it was revealed in its newly produced special features for the release that the handing over of the creative reins to production staff fans was far from being the act of benevolence on the part of studio management, it appeared to be at the time. Dismayed at the poor performance of Enterprise and the theatrical movie , new management entered into a decision making process, putting the fate of the entire Star Trek franchise at stake. Cancellation of Enterprise after its third season was in fact already a given, and it was only through skillful political maneuvering by the few executive friends Star Trek had left, former UPN Executive Garry Hart specifically, as well as some practical considerations in regards to UPN, that a by four episodes truncated fourth season was even allowed to proceed. Fans now running the show, was, simply put, something that the executive echelons could no longer be bothered with. Though the production staff was not privy to the going-ons at the executive levels, they sensed the writings on the wall, and this was instrumental for their decision to pull out all the stops for the hugely popular In a Mirror, Darkly two part episode, the most Original Series heavy production of Enterprise, albeit to no avail as already mentioned, when top conglomerate executive Les Moonves – not known for his affinity with science fiction in general and Star Trek in particular  – personally terminated the series definitely in February 2005, thereby ending Star Trek prime all together for the time being.  For further particulars on this situation, see: Demise of "The Franchise" in the prime universe.

Parodies
 William "Get a Life!" Shatner trashes Trekkies is a parody played by Captain Kirk's actor on Saturday Night Live in 1986.
  is a sort of recipe showing how to connect socially with this category of die-hard fans called "Trekkies".

 Footnotes 

See alsoTrekkies (movie)Trekkies 2'' (movie)
Fan fiction

External links
 
 

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