A closer look
Gene Roddenberry’s original Star Trek series inadvertently birthed the modern internet concept of fan fiction in the late 1960s when bored housewives started self-publishing underground zines featuring illicit romances between Kirk and Spock. The sheer lack of actual on-screen emotional development led these pioneering fans to essentially invent the slash fiction genre, circulating crudely printed stories through the mail long before Tumblr or Wattpad ever existed. It is incredibly funny that a heavily serialized science fiction show meant to explore profound philosophical questions about human morality and space exploration is primarily historically responsible for popularizing the concept of writing deeply explicit homoerotic stories about fictional coworkers. Decades of pristine corporate branding later, the entire bedrock of online fandom still owes its existence to thousands of women who just really wanted to see a spaceship captain make out with his stoic alien best friend
