Star Trek

1966franchise / fandomclassic

Published September 29, 2026

Star Trek is Gene Roddenberry's science fiction franchise that started on NBC in 1966, nearly died after two seasons, and got a second life thanks to a fan letter-writing campaign. From that near-cancellation grew one of the internet's oldest organized fan communities, complete with dedicated fanfiction archives, sci-fi dating sites, and reaction images pulled straight from the Enterprise bridge.

star trek memessci fi movie memestv show memesreaction memescatchphrase memes

Overview

Star Trek's online footprint is one of the older organized fan communities on the internet, with roots in mail-in fanzines that predate the web itself1. Catchphrases from the show, especially Spock's 'live long and prosper' and the opening 'to boldly go where no man has gone before,' turned into shorthand quoted across countless posts and t-shirts3. Fans call themselves Trekkies or Trekkers, and they built dedicated hubs like TrekFanFiction.net for original stories set in the Federation universe4 and Trek Passions, a free niche dating and social site aimed at sci-fi fans5.

The meme side of the franchise leans on specific images and lines from the shows. Patrick Stewart's Captain Picard facepalm, Kirk yelling 'KHAAAN,' Spock's raised eyebrow, and Riker's beard all get pulled into reaction posts3. Urban Dictionary entries frame the show as the cerebral, problem-solving counterweight to Star Wars, and that Trek vs. Wars rivalry is itself a running online joke6. Casting news still moves the fandom in real time, as when Patrick Stewart's 2018 tweet announcing his return as Picard passed 42,000 retweets and 158,000 likes within two days2.

Origin & Background

Platform
NBC (television) / online fan communities (viral spread)
Creator
Gene Roddenberry
Date
1966

The original Star Trek premiered on NBC in September 1966, created by Gene Roddenberry, and followed the crew of the USS Enterprise on a mission to explore new worlds3. William Shatner played Captain Kirk, Leonard Nimoy played the half-Vulcan Spock, and George Takei played helmsman Hikaru Sulu7. Episodes were often allegorical, using space adventures to poke at sexuality, politics, religion and war3. Ratings were shaky, and NBC planned to cancel the show during its second season.

Two Los Angeles fans, Bjo Trimble and her husband John, ran a grassroots letter-writing campaign in late 1968 that pushed NBC to renew the show for a third season1. NBC dropped Star Trek after that year, but the extra episodes pushed the total high enough for syndication, which is where the fandom actually took off1. Star Trek was resurrected as an animated series in 1973 and then as a feature film in 1979, and Bjo Trimble is still credited by StarTrek.com as 'the woman who saved Star Trek'1.

How It Spread

In syndication in the early 1970s, Star Trek picked up the audience it never had in prime time, and the fandom got organized enough to fill hotel ballrooms at the first Star Trek conventions3. That momentum led to Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973 and, eventually, the 1979 feature film3. Star Trek: The Next Generation launched in 1987 with Patrick Stewart as Captain Jean-Luc Picard and grew popular enough to sit alongside the original show in fan estimation3.

Three more series followed: Deep Space Nine (1993 to 1999), Voyager (1995 to 2001), and Enterprise, a prequel set roughly a century before Kirk's mission3. J.J. Abrams rebooted the film franchise in 2009 with a new cast playing younger versions of Kirk, Spock and the original crew in an alternate timeline created by time travel8. A sequel, Star Trek Into Darkness, followed in 20139. Fandom infrastructure kept growing in parallel, with sites like TrekFanFiction.net hosting fan-written Federation stories under a standard disclaimer that they are not endorsed by CBS or Paramount4, and Trek Passions marketing itself as a free sci-fi dating and social network since the early 2000s5.

On August 4, 2018, Patrick Stewart posted on Twitter that he would revive Jean-Luc Picard in a new series, calling it 'an unexpected but delightful surprise'2. The tweet passed 42,000 retweets and 158,000 likes within two days3. That same day the official Star Trek: Discovery account posted a companion video of Stewart and executive producer Alex Kurtzman discussing the character, which pulled around 2,400 retweets and 7,800 likes in the same window10. The announcement led directly to Star Trek: Picard, which premiered in 2020.

How to Use This Meme

Star Trek reaction images work as shorthand for specific feelings. The Picard facepalm gets used for exasperation, Kirk's screaming 'KHAAAN' works for over-the-top rage, and Spock's raised eyebrow reads as skeptical disbelief3. Fans quote 'live long and prosper' with the split-finger Vulcan salute, and the phrase 'to boldly go' is a common template for captions about doing something new6. Trekkies and Trekkers also use the /Star Wars rivalry as a running joke, with Urban Dictionary entries themselves openly favoring Trek's cerebral approach over Star Wars' 'shoot, shoot again' style6.

Frequently Asked Questions