Over the weekend i came across a great example of a Trekkie in one of my favorite tv show ” the Big Bang Theory”. For those of you how dont watch the show its about a group of friends who are physicist and are very nerdy and tend to get into awkward situations due to the lack of social knowledge. In this clip the one character Sheldon relieves a christmas gift from his neighbor and instantly becomes shocked. He fits the form of a Trekkie because he is like a brainless consumer that will buy anything that has to do with Star Trek but in this case he receives a gift and is at a loss for words of how much it means to him. To normal people its just a napkin with an autograph on it but to him its a napkin with an autograph plus the DNA of Leonard Nimoy that he can use to make a clone of. Also he displays throughout the show he is a social misfits who has become so obsessed that it forecloses other types of social experience. An example of this is when he hugs penny, he normal does not do this in the show because he lacks and social or emotional qualities a normal person would have. Penny is also shocked that he is hugging her because she is aware of his emotional immaturity. Due to his social awkwardness he did not know what the proper gift to give her. He was basing his gift off of the value of penny’s gift but since he is social awkward and he thought the value of the napkin was priceless so he brought her all the gift baskets which is completely ridiculous. If you have seen many episodes of The Big Bang Theory you could easily tell how much of a Trekkie he truly is. He displays many random facts about the show and references different episodes of star trek to make a point about whatever they are discussing. Also he likes to use what he has seen in the tv show and use it in real life. He often references episode numbers and says he just got to do this like Spock. Also Sheldon has said many times” Now what would Spock do”. Sheldon depicts many qualities of a Trekkie and is a great example of what Henry Jenkins said about a Trekkie. He has the worthless knowledge of the show, a social misfit and emotionally immature but as we have seen in the SNL skit it make great comedy.
