trekkie n.
an admirer of the U.S. television programme Star Trek
Often regarded as denoting a less serious or committed fan; cf. trekker n..
Fancyclopedia
SF Fandom
Star Trek
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1968 A Mid-Spring’s Night’s Dream in Plak-Tow (#8) 30 June in fanlore.org
page image
I’d wanted to make it clear I wasn’t just a trekkie in love with Spock. [Ibid.] His great, warm brown eyes are guaranteed to melt any trekkie into a helpless pool of protoplasm.
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1969 Dayton (Ohio) Daily News 28 July 7/1
No funny hats and rubber drunks at the Midwestcon. One or two fans of the television show, ‘Star Trek’— called ‘Trekkies’—showed up wearing pointed ears, but missing are the more obvious eccentrics the mass media mischief messengers like to write about.
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1970 Deck May 2
I start acting like a bubble-headed trekkie (rather than a sober, dignified—albeit enthusiastic—trekker).
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1972
Harlan Ellison
But then, no one ever denied that Star Trek‘trekkies’ are bats from the git-go.
Introduction to With a Finger in My I in H. Ellison Again, Dangerous Visions 341
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1973
David Gerrold
The intensity of those who wanted to make that big leap was incredible. It still is. (They're still writing their Star Trek stories even though there’s no longer a Star Trek to sell them to. But that doesn’t stop them, not at all. To a real Trekkie, Star Trek goes on forever.
Trouble With Tribbles 3
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1975
Fans fly from one end of the country to another to go to conventions, and have been accused of supporting the post office and the phone company with mind-boggling volumes of correspondence and long-distance calls. (The writers of this book have been accused of being the sole support of both companies—particularly by a couple of husbands and assorted friends.) Are all of these people crazy? Well, they have certainly been called that. They've been called other things—of which ‘trekkies’ is one of the more printable. Some have defended themselves by wearing the label like a badge of honor.
Star Trek Lives! 11
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1975
James E. Gunn
The success of ‘Star Trek’ in syndication, with its own fandom (sometimes called ‘Trekkies’) and conventions with attendance in the thousands, has created a new interest in science fiction.
Alternate Worlds 224
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1978
I find that I can label fans only ‘good-mannered’ or ‘bad-mannered‘; the terms Trekker, Trekkie, etc. turn me off.
Star Trek & Me in W. Irwin & G. B. Love Best of Trek 54 -
1988
Sharyn McCrumb
bibliography
She grinned…‘It’s Rubicon—a science fiction convention’…‘Oh, right. Like Trekkies’. He nodded.
Bimbos of Death Sun i. 8
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1990 Thrust Winter 20/2
This was precisely when the Trekkies split off from the science-fiction fans.
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1992 Amiga User Internat. Dec. 90/1
Legions of Trekkies…avidly follow the adventure of their heroes.
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1992
Fans prefer to describe themselves as ‘Trekkers’ rather than ‘Trekkies’ (a term which has increasingly come to refer only to the media constructed stereotype)—or better still, to describe themselves simply as fans (a term which signifies their membership within a larger subculture of other fans and denies a fixed reader-text relationship).
Textual Poachers 21
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1993 SFRA Rev. May 112
Something new for you Trekkies (or Trekkers) out there.
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2001 Dreamwatch Mar. 47/3
‘I'm a huge Trekkie!’ declares Sorbo. ‘I loved Gene Roddenberry’s work, especially the original series [of Star Trek] , so when they mentioned his name and said that he'd written this…right off the heels of the original series, I was more than interested.’
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2002 TV Zone No. 157 77/2
It’s an ideal stocking-filler for that tunnel-visioned Trekkie or Whovian you may know, who has now come of age to have their televisual horizons broadened.
Research requirements
antedating 1969
Earliest cite
in the Dayton Daily News
Research History
Gary McGath submitted a 1975 cite from Lichtenberg, Marshak and Winston's "Star Trek Lives!"Jeff Wolfe submitted a cite from a 1974 reprint of David Gerrold's "The Trouble With Tribbles"; this cite was verified in the 1973 first edition by Jamie Morris.
Jason Dyer submitted a cite from a 1990 reprint of an article by Fern Lynch in Walter Irwin's anthology "The Best of Trek"; this cite was verified in the 1978 first edition by Jamie Morris.
Imran Ghory submitted a 1992 cite from a book review in Amiga User International.
Imran Ghory submitted a 2002 cite from Jessica Mellor in the Daily Mirror.
Enoch Forrester submitted a 1975 cite from James Gunn's "Alternate Worlds".
Jeff Prucher submitted a 1972 cite from Harlan Ellison's introduction to David Gerrold's "With A Finger in my I".
Imran Ghory submitted a cite from a 1978 article, "Star Trek Lives: Trekker Slang" by Patricia Byrd.
Joan Marie Verba submitted a cite from Carol Pruitt's fanzine "Deck 6" (May 1970).
Fred Shapiro submitted a 1969 cite from a newspaper database.
According to fanlore.org, "trekkie" is said to have appeared in the zine Plak-Tow #8 (June 30, 1968); while we are currently quoting from the transcription there (which certainly seems to be accurate), we would like to verify this in the original. (We do not know of any copies of #8 available online; fanlore.org has an image of the first page of the essay that is said to contain the word, but that's it. The University of Iowa collections don't have a copy of #8.)
Last modified 2023-11-27 14:18:52
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