Root of Fandon: Star Trek
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A general discussion about how Star Trek pioneered the ways of fandom.
There is a sister post about fandom in general.
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@drone205 Gonna have to be more descriptive than just say "fandom". Star Trek didn't start till 1966 and there were scores of things by that point which people followed just as avidly. The staying power is the real advantage of Star Trek. It was off the air for approximately 20 years, but still maintained a fan base from only three seasons of television. If only talking about a lasting fanbase, Superman has been around since 1938 and still going strong. The equivalent in Japan is Astro Boy which started in 1952 and still going strong with breaks equivalent to what was seen from Star Trek.
Even with these examples, there was fandom before any of them. These are just the examples which jump to my mind when I think of historically significant fanbases.
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@pleco_breeder I meant more about the contributions to Fandoms or popularized. Some obvious examples are tropes and jargon named from Start Trek.
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@drone205 Most works have similar traits though. Don't misunderstand that I'm against the Star Trek popularity. Until Enterprise, I was a consistent fan of the series, but more sporadic after. However, my point is that the idea of those same traits have been around a lot longer than Star Trek. If anything, Star Trek cemented the stereotype of the overzealous fan, and did introduce a lot of tropes as a result. I'm pretty sure that Kirk was the first character on TV to have a green harem stretching across the galaxy.
However, for as long as there has been popularized media there have been those that follow it intently. The same argument could be made for sports as well. A lot of memorabilia collectors and individuals that go above and beyond to understand obscure rules to plays they won't likely ever see. All of this if fandom.
However, tropes are a bit more literary in nature. They come from the consistent use of plot details (the butler did it) in a story. There is no question that Gene Roddenberry created a lot of them, but there were others before him. The fan stereotype of mass media (largely in a negative context) was based on Star Trek.
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@pleco_breeder I mean obviously you are going to have tropes regardless of Star Trek. The Worf Effect and Redshirts would still have been tropes without Star Trek, but it is because of Star Trek that we recognize and classified these tropes. Star Trek popularized so many things related to Fandoms.
