Talk:Science Fiction Fandom vs. Media Fandom

Kay Shapiro comments:

Science Fiction/Scientifiction fandom had been around in the US for 30 some years when Star Trek came along, thus the folks who started in their teens and stayed with it - and there were many - were now in their 40s or so and had spent all of that intervening time participating in and forming the nature OF science fiction fandom. ... The point, though, is that it was there, had BEEN there for many years, saw itself as serious business, and frequently had trouble getting outsiders to differentiate between it and the sort of fandom that consists of watching professionals do things. SF fans wrote fanzines, they also wrote for prozines. Some SF fans were professional agents, or editors. You might well start out writing in fanzines, and keep right on doing so even when you broke into professional print. And you were NOT involved in "That Buck Rogers Stuff"; that was a putdown. OK, after years of - someone discovers fandom, finds it to their liking, attends meetings, learns the language and the customs, follows the advice of the fen already therein on such things as how to get published professionally, and joins the culture... Bit of a shock when an entire shower of neofen half your age suddenly come pouring in insisting on remaking all the rules and now that everybody's forgotten Buck Rogers bent on labeling your own fandom as That Star Trek Stuff to the world at large. 'Twas plenty amusing at the time I must confess - for one thing the main reason ST was so important was not the costuming or the special effects, such as they were, it was the STORIES. Each episode had a plot that was interesting, and made you think. Mostly because Roddenberry had the sense to hire actual science fiction writers to do the scripts, and somehow this didn't terrify the producers into full retreat in horror at the thought that there was something "intellectual" that would keep people from watching the show.

comment on Talk:Science Fiction Fandom to be used in some way perhaps? Also see that talk page for more resources to use in building out the present page.--æþel (talk) 05:33, 20 December 2013 (UTC)

relevant quote in academic journal American Speech

"There is a close, if not always amiable, relationship between 'Star Trek' and other science-fiction fans, who like to think of themselves as purists and of 'Star Trek' fans as television-star-smitten pre-teens. Trekkers, naturally, resent that attitude." -- Patricia Byrd, "Star Trek Lives: Trekker Slang". American Speech 53 [1978]: 52-58.