So, for the third and final season of Star Trek: Picard, I teamed up with Jason Harding,
my best friend and creator of the Lemme Listen family of podcasts,
including Late Seating and The Ensign’s Log, both of which I am on, to review the show.
Jason and I watched the episodes together over Zoom, and then, as soon as the episode was over,
we recorded our conversation about the episode we’d just watched, and that was our review. If
you didn’t watch our Picard season three episode reviews, they’re here on the channel in the “Star
Trek: Picard Season Three Reviews” playlist — check ‘em out if you want, I think they’re fun!
Jason and I mostly disagreed on the show — he generally liked it, I generally did not. Most
viewers who left comments took Jason’s side — not unexpected, season three of Picard was popular
with the fanbase, I and others who weren’t that impressed with it are very much in the minority,
which is fine, different strokes, et cetera. One of the most interesting comments we got
was on our review of episode ten, the series finale, from PaxPaul, who says:
“Steve clearly wants an intelligently written story first and foremost. Jason
clearly just wants regurgitated nostalgia. Steve cares about Star Trek as a whole,
the concept of the franchise and the quality of its components. Jason just wants 'member
berries and pew pews. Steve thinks about the implications of events and dialogue
in the show. Jason stares mindlessly at the screen with a grin on his face,
just happy to hear familiar characters and ship names so he doesn't have to think much.
“Back in the day, we called fans like Steve Trekkers and fans like Jason Trekkies. I
don't mind Jason or others like him, but I wish he would stop his goddamn sneering
at Steve for thinking through shit that he was too lazy to think about himself.”
Firstly, all due respect to PaxPaul,
while I do think this is an accurate characterization of where I’m coming from,
I don’t think it’s at all fair to Jason. He’s not the “just happy to hear familiar names and
see the ships” type, although he was obviously more receptive to those elements in the third
season of Picard, which is what enabled him to enjoy it because those elements account for about
seventy-five percent of the fucking show. But, what really got my attention in PaxPaul’s comment
was the distinction between Trekkers and Trekkies. Because let me tell ya . . . that takes me back.
According to the Wikipedia article on “Trekkie,” which cites the Oxford English Dictionary,
the term “Trekker” actually came first — it’s dated to 1967, when Star Trek: The Original
Series was still on the air. However, by the time of my childhood, “Trekkie” was by far the more
common term to describe fans of Star Trek. I don’t remember encountering “Trekker” until the 1990s.
What’s the difference? Is there a difference? . . . Yes, and no, and that depends.
Going back to the OED — or, more specifically, the Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction — “Trekker”
is defined as “a fan of the television series Star Trek and its sequels and spin-offs,” while
“Trekkie” is defined as “a fan of the television series Star Trek and its sequels and spin-offs,
especially an immature or stereotyped fan.” Ah ha. That tracks with the way I first heard the
terms being used. They meant essentially the same thing, but “Trekkie” was considered derogatory.
But, that’s not quite the way PaxPaul is using the terms in that comment I quoted.
The usage in that comment suggests an understanding of the terms more
in line with this description I found in a post on the dating blog Smooth Re-Entry:
“A Trekkie is the fan that has lost touch with reality. A Trekker enjoys being a fan,
but still has both feet on the ground here in the real world.”
That article also quotes someone credited only as
“a random woman on OkCupid,” who summarizes it this way:
“Trekkies are the ones who think they actually belong to the Starfleet. Trekkers are just fans
of the show and don’t try to learn to speak Klingon and that sort of thing.”
This understanding of “Trekkie” and “Trekker” seems to be pretty common. But,
it’s not universal — you don’t have to look very hard to find examples of people who use
them in precisely the opposite way, where Trekkies are fans who just like Star Trek
because they think it’s a good show, and Trekkers are the ones who take it way too seriously. The
definition of each word really depends on who is using it and what they mean by it. Actually,
it’s a useful example of how conditional the meanings of words are, in general.
Despite my personal approach to Star Trek more or less lining up with the definition
of “Trekker” put forth in PaxPaul’s comment and the quoted blog article,
if I have to apply one of the two labels to myself, I prefer Trekkie — and the reason I prefer
Trekkie is that I would be way more embarrassed to call myself a Trekker. How come? Well . . .
Like I said, the first time I heard “Trekker” was in the ‘90s, when I was a child/teenager. Back
then, it seemed like “Trekker” was being pushed as the politically correct term,
as though “Trekkie” was culturally insensitive. “Oh, actually, I believe they prefer to be called
Trekkers.” . . . And? Like, the mere fact that someone would even think to
insist on being called a Trekker rather than a Trekkie makes me want to laugh in their face.
Don’t get me wrong — I’m all for political correctness. If there’s a word being used to
refer to a group of marginalized people, and those people decide they don’t like
that word and ask the rest of us to use another word to refer to them instead,
I think we need to get used to using the new word. It’s basic respect. But when we speak in terms of
Trekkies or Trekkers, we’re referring to a group of people defined by a TV show they all like,
not some immutable characteristic. They’re a fandom, not a protected class.
I’m not trying to be a dick about this — in all honesty, if someone did demand to be called a
Trekker instead of a Trekkie, and it seemed like it was really important to them and it would upset
them if I didn’t respect their preference, I’d call them a Trekker. And I wouldn’t actually
laugh in their face — that’s unconscionably rude. I’d laugh behind their back . . .
People who insist on “Trekker” instead of “Trekkie” often seem to be doing so because
they consider “Trekkie” derogatory, demeaning. But the thing is, I prefer “Trekkie” precisely
because it is the less dignified term. There’s something slightly pretentious
about “Trekker.” The word has a whiff of “we demand to be taken seriously” about it.
Star Trek is great. It’s one of my favorite things. And, it is an inescapably and often
outrageously silly thing. Beneath the silliness, it does have important things
to tell us. But I think our rhapsodizing over how deep and meaningful it is needs
to be balanced with an awareness of the fact that this thing we all love is a pulp sci-fi
action/adventure show about people with foam rubber glued to their heads, wearing pajamas,
pretending to fly around in plywood space ships. It’s not about denigrating Star Trek
or the people who love it — of whom I am one — it’s about maintaining perspective.
Yes, “City on the Edge of Forever,” yes “Balance of Terror.” But also,
“The Trouble with Tribbles” and “Shore Leave.” Are we really gonna act like sober,
solemn intellectual contemplation is the only appropriate way to engage with this
material? Hell, at its best sometimes Star Trek is serious and silly all at once! Star Trek IV:
The Voyage Home has both an earnest and timely environmentalist message, and a madcap sequence
in a hospital where Kirk, McCoy and Gillian Taylor disguise themselves as doctors to rescue Chekov.
My favorite of the current generation of Star Trek shows, Strange New Worlds, has, just in its ten
episode first season, shows that are dramatic and fraught with tension, scenes where Captain
Pike struggles with the existential angst that results from knowing his own traumatic future,
and an episode where Spock and his girlfriend T’Pring swap bodies, and an episode where the
storybook Dr. M’Benga has been reading to his daughter comes to life and the members of the
Enterprise crew become fairy tale characters. What I’m saying is, there’s a spectrum.
I use the term “Trekkie” to refer to my Star Trek fandom for the same reason I use “mark”
to refer to my pro wrestling fandom. Also back in the ‘90s, as internet access became a more widely
available thing and people with shared interests could more easily connect with one another,
some pro wrestling fans decided that they didn’t like the term “mark” being used to describe them,
because traditionally “mark” was used by people in the wrestling business to refer to fans who
weren’t smart to the business — in other words, fans who thought pro wrestling was a legitimate
sport. These fans considered “mark” to be insulting, because they were smart to the business
and appreciated wrestling for what it actually was, not because they thought it was “real.”
They felt “mark” implied that they were gullible, ignorant — that they were suckers in a con game!
So, they started calling themselves “smart marks,” which was sometimes shortened to
“smarks” or — and this one is really revealing of where their heads were at — “smarts.”
Strikes me as a bit pompous — a bit highfalutin’ — and if you’re that way
about pro wrestling, you need to let some of the air outta that balloon.
Sure, I know pro wrestling is a work, but I still watch it, I’ve bought tickets to live events,
I’ve ordered pay-per-views, I’ve bought merch, I’ve done all the things wrestling
promoters have tried to get me to do. I’m not a smark or a smart — I’m a mark. And,
I’m not a Trekker — I’m a Trekkie. There’s nothing highfalutin’ about it, nor should there be.
That being said, Trekkie is the label I apply to myself, but if someone else thinks I’m more
of a Trekker according to how they use the terms, that’s fine. I answer to both. Like I said, it’s
a word to identify me as someone who likes a TV show, not a fundamental characteristic of who I am
as a person. I love Star Trek, it has been a very positive influence on my life, watching it and
talking about it and thinking about it has given me countless hours of entertainment and aided my
development as a writer, as a critic, a video essayist, a humanist, a progressive, as someone
who at least tries not to be such an asshole, most of the time — yeah, it’s important to me.
But at the end of the day, it’s only one of many things that are important to me. It alone doesn’t
define me. So, I say I’m a Trekkie. If you call me a Trekker instead, I’m not gonna get sore about
it. I’ve explained my reasoning for preferring one term over the other, and hopefully you’ve found
this explanation interesting, but if you refer to me by the other term, I don’t really care.
And if you do care — if you really care, I mean — if someone calls you a Trekkie and you
say “Actually, I prefer ‘Trekker,’” and you’re not just kidding around,
it really matters to you that they call you a Trekker and not a Trekkie — maybe
take a step back, look around, and consider the possibility that you should get over yourself?
Because there’s nothing wrong with learning to speak Klingon, or cosplaying at a con,
or redecorating your garage to resemble a shuttlebay and referring to your minivan as
“the runabout” — but it is a bit much to demand to be taken seriously while you do those things.
. . . Or would all that be considered Trekkie shit? I dunno, I always get them confused.