2: The Rise of Geek Culture

Summary

Jeffrey Harlan discusses the history and evolution of geek culture, tracing its origins back to early 20th century fandoms, the rise of science fiction and fantasy magazines, the first science fiction conventions, the impact of Star Trek and Star Wars, the growth of superhero movies, and the recent explosion of geek-focused content on streaming platforms.

Timestamps

00:00 - Opening Titles and Introduction
01:48 - Main Feature
19:21 - This Week in Geek: 6-19 January 2025
24:13 - Conclusion and Closing Credits

Key Takeaways

  • Geek culture has its roots in early 20th century fandoms for science fiction, fantasy, and detective stories. [02:14]
  • The first science fiction magazine, "Amazing Stories," was launched in 1926 and helped establish organized science fiction fandom. [02:43]
  • The first World Science Fiction Convention was held in 1939 and introduced the Hugo Awards.
  • The 1960s saw the rise of Star Trek, which brought science fiction fandom to television audiences. [07:09]
  • The 1970s and 1980s saw the rise of Star Wars and the growth of superhero movies, further expanding geek culture. [09:02]
  • The 1990s and 2000s saw the explosion of online fan communities and the mainstream success of genre franchises like Harry Potter and The Lord of the Rings.
  • The 2010s and 2020s have seen geek culture become more socially acceptable and profitable, with the rise of streaming platforms catering to dedicated fan bases. [16:53]

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Episode Transcript

(00:00): In a world where fandoms collide, where epic stories shape our lives and where passion for all things geeky connects us across time and space. Welcome to the Geek Unified Theory,hosted by the one and only Jeffrey Harlan, your guide through the worlds of heroes, villains, and everything in between. Grab your controller, pick up your favorite graphic novel and settle in for the ride. It's time for the Geek Unified Theory.

Hey geeks. Welcome to Geek Unified Theory,episode two. I'm your host, Jeffrey Harlan. In this episode, we'll explore how geek culture transformed from a niche interest to a global phenomenon.

This episode is brought to you by my book: Crusaders: Book two of the Minutemen. Following the events of Donner und Blitzkrieg, moreand more superhumans are beginning to emerge. Most want to use their powers to help others. Some see it as an excuse to indulge their darkest impulses. Forces in the government clash on how to address the rise of a superpowered segment of the population, just as the new heroes themselves are divided. Meanwhile, a secret organization has been growing in strength, seeking to use the confusion to achieve its own nefarious goals. Crusadersis available through my website, jeffreyharlan.com, and can be found at retailers around the world.

(01:49): We're going to start off with a definition of what exactly is geek culture. Geek culture is a community. It's built around shared passions, particularly those for certain genres of entertainment, for technology, and for intellectual pursuits.

Now, the origin of geek culture has its roots in early fandoms of the beginning of the 20th century. The first fan clubs formed in the 1920s were on popular genres like science fiction, fantasy, and detective stories. Pulp magazines begin publication around this time in 1923. Weird Taleswas the first dedicated to fantasy and horror. Three years later in 1926, Amazing Storiesbecame the first magazine dedicated to science fiction and was edited by Hugo Gernsback.

Amazing's letter column led to the first organized science fiction fandom. The people that would write in and have their letters published had their addresses published along with those letters, so they would start sending mail to each other and it networked out from there. The term science fiction wasn't actually coined until 1929. Before that stories were classified with terms like “scientific fiction” or “scientific romance.” Romance had a bit of a different definition at the time than it does now.

In 1930, Astounding Tales of Super Science—which was later named renamed simply Astoundingafter it was acquired in 1933 by Street and Smith—soon became the leading magazine in the science fiction genre. Many more magazines followed, but only eight survived low sales and the paper shortages of World War II: Astounding, Weird Tales, Startling Stories, Thrilling Wonder Stories, Amazing Stories, Fantastic Adventures, Famous Fantastic Mysteries,and Planet Stories.

The first world science fiction convention, or Worldcon as it's known now, was held in 1939 at the World's Fair in New York City. It helped solidify organized fandom gatherings. Every convention that has come out since has its roots with Worldcon. Worldcon also introduced the Hugo Awards. These are given out every year and they recognize authors and stories and other creators in science, fiction and fantasy.

The First World Con even featured early cosplayers. The conventions organizer, Forrest J. Ackerman, and his girlfriend, who was also his fellow fanzine editor, Myrtle R. Douglas, both wore costumes that she designed and made, which they dubbed “futuristicostumes.”
The 1930s and 40s also saw the birth of superheroes with the creation of Superman in 1938, and was followed soon thereafter by hundreds of characters including Batman, Namor, Blue Beetle, the Flash, the original Captain Marvel—now known as Shazam—Green Lantern, Captain America, Wonder Woman, and many more. A lot of these characters, the companies have gone out of business or their copyrights weren't registered properly or renewed when the time came based on the laws at the time, so a lot of them have since fallen into the public domain.

The growth of paperback books in the 1950s meant that more and more people were exposed to fantasy and science fiction than ever before, leading to a more diverse fandom. As the fan base grew, regional conventions began to spring up in cities around the country, in the US and beyond in other countries, and fans could meet up with authors, they could attend panels, they could share their passions with each other.

The 1960s brought in Star Trek.This was a massive game changer for science fiction and also for fantasy too, indirectly. It was the first major television fandom that led to fan conventions and also to the growth of fan culture. It was the first science fiction fan base that transcended the genre's literary roots.

Up until this point, all of science fiction fandom was based on books and short stories that were being printed in the magazines. Now, Star Trekcomes along and you've got the television show, and that starts leading to other things like movies. When Star Trekwas threatened with cancellation in its second season, protests and letter writing campaigns showed the power of fan activism by actually succeeding in getting the show renewed for a third season.

Fandoms played a key role in cultivating a sense of community among like-minded people, but they were largely still on a local scale and geeks were often mocked and excluded. This continued for decades until very recently. Fanzines and fanfiction became major outlets for fandom expression and for expanding those fan communities. Star Trekfans, in particular, contributed to the rise of fanfiction—so-called “slash fiction” only exists because of Star Trekfanfiction in the 1970s. It gets its name from the convention of putting “Kirk/Spock” for stories that paired the two up romantically.

The 1970s saw the rise of Star Wars.The release of Star Warsin 1977 began one of the largest and most significant media fandoms of the 20th century. It created a global fan base, something even Star Trekreally hadn't done yet. At that point, the success of Star Warscreated an explosion in media fandom, much like Star Trekdid a decade earlier, but on a much larger scale. It brought science fiction and fantasy into the cultural mainstream in a way that nothing had ever before.

In the 80s, anime started to come to the US. It was introduced to American audiences with series and films like Astroboy, Robotech,and Akira,and this set the stage for the later explosion of anime fandom in the 90s with shows like Narutoand Dragonballand all these other shows that are so massively popular now.

In the 90s, fans began to gather online as the internet became more and more available to the average person, created virtual communities where people from all over the world would gather together online and they would share their stories and get to know one another. Websites and early social media like Usenet forums, chat rooms, instant messaging, all created spaces that allowed for the growth of these communities and the birth of sub fandoms.

The 90s also saw a boom of superhero movies. We first started getting serious superhero movies at the end of the 70s with 1979’s Superman: The Movie,and then that spawned the franchise of Superman films. There were four of them in all throughout the 80s. There were also several television series that came out around this time. There was Wonder Womanin the 70s—in 1976—there was also a TV series with Captain Marvel, now known as Shazam. There were others like The Incredible Hulk.There were attempts at a Spider-Man TV series. There were a lot of these shows, but they didn't quite get the traction that they would later get in the late 90s and the early 2000s, I think partly because the technology just didn't quite exist yet for the special effects on the budget that these shows had. But as the technology of filmmaking progressed, that became more and more available at a lower and lower cost, and studios started to see more of a return financially for these films. So they continue to make more and more and more, and now you get what we have now where you have dozens of superhero movies coming out.

So the success of Supermaneventually led to the 1989 Batmanfilm. That marked a major change, first because it shifted major public consciousness of Batman away from the 1960s TV series, which was extremely cheesy and not really representative of the comics even at that time. Batman's success led to a lot of others being made. We started getting movies like Bladeand even obscure comic books like Mystery Mengot turned into movies. Some of these shows were more successful than others, but they all started to bring something and more awareness to the general population about all this stuff that we were already passionate about for years and decades up to this point,

Star Treksaw a return in the 80s and 90s, and this is widely considered to be like the golden age of Star Trek. The Next Generationachieved a massive success that the original Star Treknever enjoyed. It led to multiple spinoffs. There were other shows on the air as well at this time. You had shows like Dark Skiesand you had all these other science fiction fantasy shows that were starting to come out in television. It was becoming more inexpensive for or for the studios to produce these shows with the effects necessary for the stories they wanted to tell.

One of these shows was The X-Files.It was a huge hit and it widely considered a defining show of the 1990s. The fans became incredibly invested in the characters and the conspiracy theories around aliens and things that were going on in the show. By the 2000s and the 2010s, we started seeing an explosion of genre films. Franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings,all just massively dominating the Box office and Lord of the Ringswas the first genre film to win an Academy Award for Best Picture. We also got a rise of superhero film franchises because all these other films that had been coming out to that point, they were getting better and better and better.

And then we have Spider-Manand the X-Men films that came out in 2000. Was it 2001? 2002? These were hugely successful, much more faithful to the comics that they were based upon than some previous films based on superheroes. And this eventually led to the birth of the MCU. In 2008, we get the first Iron Manfilm.

Marvel had sold off the rights to all of their major characters, all the ones that they considered their biggest characters: Spider-Man, the Incredible Hulk. So Marvel couldn't use them to make movies on their own, but they did have all the others that were considered B and c listers in the comics when these rights were sold off. So they started making movies with them, and they started with Iron Man. That was hugely successful.

A lot of people became aware of Marvel comics that had never read the comics before. Through these movies, the term fandom became more widely recognized in the mainstream, and social media platforms allowed these fandoms to grow exponentially and allowed more direct contact between creators and celebrities with the fans.

The popularity of conventions like San Diego Comic-Con exploded in the 2010s. It started off fairly small, focused very much on comic books and that industry, and now it has come to encompass all these other kinds of media and comic books has actually kind of fallen by the wayside in many ways at Comic-Con.

Fandom has also expanded through streaming platforms. Now we've got, in addition to Netflix, we have Disney+, Paramount+, Max, all these other streaming channels. And a lot of them, if not all of them, really, are using shows in the science fiction and fantasy genres to build their audience because they know that there is a dedicated and passionate group of fans who will pay for the subscriptions to sign up for these services. They're bringing us shows like Stranger Things, The Mandalorian,and all of its subsequent Star Warsshows on Disney+, and The Expanseon Amazon Prime. We also have Paramount+, which launched with Star Trek: Discoveryand many more series since.

The future for fandom and Geek culture is looking extremely bright, as it’s much more socially acceptable now than it has been in the past and much more profitable for companies to cater to the types of shows and media that we like to consume.

(19:21): This Week in Geek

For the week of January 6th through 12 of 2025.

On January 6th, it's Norman Reedus's birthday. He was born in 1969. He's probably best known for playing Daryl Dixon on The Walking Dead.

January 7th: Nicholas Cage was born in 1964 and Jeremy Renner was born in 1971.

January 8th: Stephen Hawking was born in 1942.

January 9th is National Word Nerd Day. So everyone who geeks out about words, this is your day.

January 10th is Peculiar People Day, and let's admit, we are all a little peculiar in some way.

January 12th is National Hot Tea Day in the United States. This is the day for you to get out your tea cups and have some Tea, Earl Grey, Hot. January 12th is also Rob Zombie's birthday. He was born in 1965.

For the week of January 13th through the 19th, 2025.

January 13th is National Clean Your Desk Day in the United States. Over time, we all accumulate a lot of stuff on our desks: papers, movies, other knick-knacks. Things just kind of accumulate and before you know it, there is hardly any open space for you to put anything else. So this is your day to clean that up and organize it and get it nice and neat so you can mess it up all over again. January 13th: Liam Hemsworth was born in 1990. He was Gale in The Hunger Gamesfranchise.

January 14th is World Logic Day. We all love Mr. Spock and his embrace of logic, and this is the day for us to embrace logic.

January 15th: Batman: The Moviepremiered in 1966. January 15th is also National Hat Day in the United States. This is the perfect day if you are a Pakled. Hopefully, your hat is big enough.

January 16th is the anniversary of the premiere of Star Trek: Voyagerin 1995, and it's also Appreciate a Dragon Day.

January 17th is Popeye Day. This is also the year that he enters the public domain because his first appearance was on January 17th, 1929. James Earl Jones was born on January 17th, 1931 and Jim Carey was born that day in 1962.

January 18th is National Gourmet Coffee Day in the United States. This is certainly Captain Kathryn Janeway's favorite holiday. [Janeway]: “Coffee. The finest organic suspension ever devised. It's got me through the worst of the last three years. I beat the Borg with it.” January 18th is also Dave Bautista's birthday. He was born in 1969.

January 19th: Edgar Allen Poe was born in 1809, and Katie Sagal, perhaps best known to geeks as the voice of Leela on Futurama,was born in 1954.

(24:16): Thanks for listening. Join us for our next episode where we'll look at the rise and fall of cartoons in the 1980s.

Be sure to like and subscribe and visit us at our website, geekunifiedtheory.com and on social media at facebook.com/geekunifiedtheory, Instagram at @geekunifiedtheory and Bluesky @geekunifiedtheory.com.

Recorded and mastered by Jeffrey Harlan. Music by Ovani Sound and Hyperreal Records. Used under license.

Geek Unified Theory is a production of Confluent Press Audio. Copyright 2025, Jeffrey Harlan, dbaConfluent Press. All rights reserved.

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