No, the fandom template was already there; Star Trek fans built on it.
Think of Star Trek fans like Henry Ford. He didn’t invent the automobile, or the assembly line. He figured out how to put them together. That doesn’t diminish his impact.
Except that even most of what was put together with Trek fandom was already done earlier by Holmesians and others.
Just remember, people haven’t changed. There have always been people with the personality for whom this sort of thing appeals.
Of course I did. I’m a SMOF.
Oops <blush>
Some of us on the SDMB are old enough to remember when Worldcon (the largest literary science fiction convention) was larger than San Diego Comic-Con (the largest non-literary science fiction convention). By literary, I mean cons that concentrate on novels and short stories, not comics, graphic novels, movies, TV shows, or animation. (The non-literary cons are sometimes called media cons.) Some of us thought that non-literary cons were just a minor side-effect to the increase in the size of Worldcon and the various regional literary science fiction conventions during the 1970’s. Instead, the non-literary cons have grown much faster since then, so San Diego Comic-Con is now much larger than Worldcon. So while there has been some increase in the amount of literary cons (and science fiction novels and short stories), it now feels to old-time science fiction fans that we have to explain to the younguns that there is a long history to literary science fiction going back well before media science fiction:
Fans were hardcore back then.
Also the idea of fan-run, non-profit conventions that aren’t designed to provide the attendees as the product for their true customers, vendors and paid celebrities. A place where the top stars in the field hang out not because they are paid (and paid by attendees for autographs or a selfie) but because that is where they want to be (and often have to pay for their own attendance just like everybody else.)
I knew several people who considered Trekkies to have actually hurt fan culture, rather than improved upon it.
Well, now I’m just curious - what does “improved” fan culture look like? What’s a hypothetical aspect of fandom at its zenith? I get that a lit-snob might look down on fans of a TV show*, but how do the TV fans “hurt” the overall culture or anyone in it?
*I’ve met such people myself. I ran tech support for some minor local conventions 1989-1993, and was surprised when the 1992 organizer, a lit-snob, didn’t consider it a priority to put aside a block of time at 7 p.m. on Saturday, October 12th. For that hour, pretty much the entire convention headed to the video room to watch the local broadcast of Star Trek: The Next Generation - it was the “Relics” episode, guest-starring James Doohan.