Thank the Female Fandom for the Success of Star Trek

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Star Trek, arguably one of the most important science fiction franchises in the world, just celebrated it’s 50th anniversary. The original show debuted in 1966, but it wasn’t as immediately successful as one might assume based on its subsequent successes. All those movies, TV shows, novels, comics, video games, and tons of merchandise never would have happened if it weren’t for some very dedicated fans. Those fans organized letter-writing campaigns, organized conventions, and wrote fan fiction to keep the franchise alive, especially between 1970 and 1979 when there weren’t any new episodes being aired. Those fans not only kept Star Trek alive, they laid the foundation of modern day fandom, and those fans were women.

Today, producers love fans because they ensure a constant influx of money. The websites Tumblr and DeviantArt basically exist so that people can easily share fanart and get into arguments about which fictional characters they think should be in relationships with other fictional characters. Massive conventions like Comic-Con, PAX, or Dragoncon wouldn’t exist without fandom, and everything from Star Wars to Stranger Things probably wouldn’t even exist if the Internet hadn’t come along to turn fandom into the giant money making machine that it is.

But those initial Star Trek conventions, and fanzines, and fan fiction, and fanart, were most made, organized, and shared by women who loved the show. Back then, it was a labor of love; there weren’t magazines or easily available stills to reference for your drawing of Spock or your homemade Starfleet uniform. Fanzines were hand-typed or hand-written and copied via mimeograph (here’s a link if you’re too young to know what that is).

Everybody from J.J. Abrams to William Shatner to the kids sharing their Steven Universe fanart on Tumblr owe it to the women who gave us Star Trek fandom.