Grateful Dead - Deadheads
Jimmy Buffect - Parrot Heads
Firefly/Serenity - Browncoats
Star Trek - Trekkers (or Trekkies, but it is my understanding that Trekker is preferred)
Red Sox - Red Sox Nation
Which fan base has the coolest name? How in the heck do these names get into popular usage anyway?
Share your nominations and any background how on that name got coined or made popular…
…oh - and if he has such a big following, how come I never hear that Springsteen’s fans have a nickname for themselves? Have I just not heard it?
Who else’s fans should have a nickname but don’t - what should their nickname be? Don’t be mean - no need to slam anything here. I would prefer it if the person suggesting a nickname counts themselves as a member of that fanbase…
I’ve always hated the diminutive term for the ladies auxillary of whatever. Like the Lady Orioles or whatnot. Thankfully, our local boys didn’t go that route and call their cheerleaders the Swashbucklers. I deeply, deeply wish that the cheerleaders for the Tampa Bay Buccaneers (Bucs) were the Buc-ettes.
OT: Rabid, over-everything, drunk, aging male fans of the University of Florida are Bull Gators. (BuHl Gatahz, if you are a native.)
Weren’t X-Files fans called X-philes? I guess that only really works in print, but I always thought it was clever. To the OP: I am not a member of that fanbase. I’m not sure I’m a member of any fanbase that has a nickname. People who like air-cooled cars sometimes call themselves “airheads”, but since I’m not as rabid about it as your average airhead, I don’t apply the term to myself.
[QUOTE=Bayard]
People who like air-cooled cars sometimes call themselves “airheads”, but since I’m not as rabid about it as your average airhead, I don’t apply the term to myself.
[/QUOTE]
Air-cooled motorcycles as well – I love my “Airheads, Simple by Choice” T-shirt.
[QUOTE=WordMan]
…oh - and if he has such a big following, how come I never hear that Springsteen’s fans have a nickname for themselves? Have I just not heard it?
[/QUOTE]
Sometimes it just feels like Jersians for the ‘Boss’.
I note you did not include ‘Cheeseheads’, which is good, as that would be the uncoolist nickname for a fan base.
BTW: Trekkies appear to be cranky older fans that only like the original series & movies (like me).
A specific subset of Yankee fans are the “Bleacher Creatures”. Very cool.
[QUOTE=Aesiron]
I’m a 25 year old Trekkie that hates Star Trek and I can’t recall anyone that’s ever told me they prefer to be called a Trekker.
[/QUOTE]
Its weird and totally not PC, but while Trekkie was geeky and I never minded it, Trekker always sounded gay to me.
I haven’t been to a convention since 1987 and we were still mainly Trekkies way back then. I thought Trekkers seem to come along with Next Generation.
It might have been the case during the early years of TNG but I got into Trek around '93 and spent the following ten years heavily involved in the fandom and never once met anyone that said they were a Trekker and not a Trekkie, though I pretended to a couple times, just to screw with people.
I think it’s like “Beam Me Up, Scotty”. A phrase or term everyone “knows” about Trek but was never actually said or commonly used.
I’ve heard Tom Waits fans called “Rain Dogs,” after the 1985 album that might be his best one ever. He has said that Rain Dogs refer to dogs who lose track of their familiar smells when it rains very hard, and can’t find their way back home.
