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Takara_Soong

Known or Suspected Famous Trekkies/Trekkers

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Barack Obama is a big fan of Star Trek. He said himself: "I grew up on Star Trek. I believe in the final frontier." And, when Leonard Nimoy was the guest on NPR's "Wait Wait...Don't Tell Me!" in September, he said that he had run into "one of the presidential candidates" and that that candidate had, upon seeing Nimoy, given him the Vulcan salute. He refused to name the candidate, but said he "was not John McCain." (Ed. Note: not to mention, he is the best example of the strength of IDIC we've seen in a long time)

Link: http://blog.wired.com/geekdad/2008/11/5-signs-preside.html

 

Last Friday, at a campaign event in Wyoming, presidential hopeful Barack Obama said the following: "I grew up on Star Trek. I believe in the final frontier."

Link: http://trekmovie.com/2008/03/09/the-next-space-frontier/

Very cool Dabo Girl! I had missed that. Thanks for the links and mentioning it! You rock!

Edited by trekz

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More Obama is a Trekkie quotes:

 

According to the actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock in the series, Obama flashed him the split four-fingered Vulcan salute when the two crossed paths last year. In May in Des Moines, Newsweek caught Obama teasing wife Michelle about her belt buckle, saying it was studded with Star Trek-powering dilithium crystals and adding, "Beam me up, Scotty!" As he laughed at his own joke, Michelle Obama rolled her eyes, as geek wives often do.

 

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As a youngster, Obama collected Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. His Senate website used to have a photo of him posing in front of a Superman statue, and in October at New York's Alfred Smith dinner he joked: "I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the planet Earth." Jor-El was the father of Superman, born on the planet Krypton.

 

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Link to entire story: http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/ga...nt-1215625.html

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(12-25) 04:00 PST Washington - --

 

Get ready for the geek-in-chief.

 

President-elect Barack Obama used to collect comic books, can't part with his BlackBerry, and once flashed "Star Trek" star Leonard "Mr. Spock" Nimoy the Vulcan "Live Long and Prosper" sign.

 

That and other evidence has convinced some of Obama's nerdier fans that he'll be the first American president to show distinct signs of geekiness. And that's got them as excited as a Tribble around a Klingon.

 

Obama is good at "repressing his inner geek, but you can tell it's there," especially when he goes into nuanced explanations of technical matters, said Benjamin Nugent, author of the book "American Nerd: The Story of My People."

 

"One imagines a terrifying rally of 'Star Trek' people shouting, 'One of us!' " Nugent said, in an interview conducted by e-mail, of course.

 

Others see only some geek qualities, qualifying the president-elect as merely "nerd-adjacent." After all, he's an athlete and kind of cool, some experts demur. Still, there's enough there for geeks to celebrate.

 

Psychology professor Larry Welkowitz of Keene State College in New Hampshire speculated that there's a shift in what's cool and that "smart can be in. Maybe that started with the computer programmers of the '90s. The Bill Gateses of the world are OK."

 

The Obama transition team would not comment on the president-elect's geek qualities, even when it was suggested those could be positive. And his old college friends give the geek idea a split vote.

 

While Margot Mifflin, now a journalism professor in New York, said she saw no geeky signs in Obama as a freshman at Occidental College in Los Angeles, Amiekoleh Kimbrew Usafi recalled it differently, despite the lack of technology in 1979.

 

"He's a geek because he was smart," Usafi said, noting that Occidental was a geeky school to start with, billing itself as the Yale of the West. "I remember he would be hitting his books. I would see him in the library. ... There were a lot of girls that liked him because he was cute, but he kept his head in the direction he was going in. I would see him studying all the time."

 

Wired magazine first crowed about Obama the geek, complete with five reasons in its GeekDad blog. A lot depends on the definition of geek, which to Wired is more compliment than insult.

 

GeekDad contributor Matt Blum, a software engineer in Reston, Va., defines geeks as having high intellects, embracing technology, "getting excited about things in the future especially, particularly fiction," having a science viewpoint and being steeped in the geek culture of science fiction and fantasy.

 

Geeks know and use references from "Star Trek," Dungeons & Dragons and comic books. And, he added, they are nitpicky, unafraid to correct mixed science fiction metaphors, such as confusing the Andorians of "Star Trek" with the "Star Wars" Iridonians.

 

Here's a quick geek cultural check for Obama:

 

-- Technology. Click that icon. He's the candidate who tried to announce his vice presidential pick by text message and embraced Facebook as a campaign tool. He's seldom seen without a BlackBerry and talks of a chief technology officer for the nation.

 

-- Comic books. As a youngster, Obama collected Spider-Man and Conan the Barbarian comic books. His old Senate Web site posts a photo of him posing in front of a Superman statue, and in October at New York's Alfred Smith dinner he joked: "I was actually born on Krypton and sent here by my father Jor-El to save the planet Earth." Jor-El was the father of Superman, born on the planet Krypton.

 

-- "Star Trek," the long-running TV show. According to the actor Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock in the series, Obama flashed him the split four-fingered Vulcan salute when the two crossed paths last year. In May in Des Moines, Newsweek caught Obama teasing his wife, Michelle, about her belt buckle, saying it was studded with dilithium crystals, the energy source in "Star Trek," and adding, "Beam me up, Scotty!" As he laughed at his own joke, she rolled her eyes, as geek wives often do.

 

Yes, geeks have wives. That's one of the things that separates them from nerds and dorks.

 

"A geek is someone who has the knowledge of the geeky type stuff and has social graces," Blum said. "A nerd is someone who has the knowledge but not the social graces and a dork is someone who has neither."

 

Geek-in-chief

By that definition Obama is a geek, not a nerd or dork, Blum said. Nerds are the type who live in their parents' basements until they're 45, whereas geeks are more normal, he said.

 

"I'm a geek because I'm a dad," Blum said. "I managed to find a woman who wished to marry me and have children with me."

 

Blum said Obama qualifies as the first geek-in-chief because George W. Bush was too much a cheerleader and Bill Clinton too wonky and not technological enough. The other presidents came of age before geek culture did, so don't qualify.

 

But don't discount John Quincy Adams as a geeky guy who steeped himself in government as a teenager, contends author Nugent who by adding that historical reference reinforces his geek expertise.

 

In some ways, though, experts say Obama is just too cool, too athletic, too normal to wear the geek cape. Obama did use drugs and was a high school athlete, missing out on two prime nerd qualities, Nugent said.

 

Dan Sarewitz, a professor of science and society at Arizona State University, said calling Obama a geek is unfair both to the president-elect and geeks.

 

"He's too cool to be a geek; he's a decent basketball player; he knows how to dance; he dresses well," Sarewitz said. "It's too high a standard for geeks to possibly live up to."

 

All the nerds at home can at least try, though, courtesy of a heavily muscled "beach blanket Obama" action figure selling for $29.95.

 

So is Obama a geek?

 

In the words of Alan Leshner, president of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which had two past leaders appointed by Obama to high posts: "I hope so."

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rosario-dawson-picture-6.jpg

 

Nerdiness comes naturally to Dawson

 

LOS ANGELES -- Because we don't know Klingon, we'll spell it out in English: Rosario Dawson is a comics-adoring, Star Trek-worshipping geek.

 

This may not come as a revelation if you've followed Dawson's choices in recent years -- co-creating the 2006 comic series Occult Crimes Taskforce, signing on for Frank Miller's Sin City -- but what may is the depth of her, well, nerdiness.

 

Whether she's articulating how each cinematic Batman through the decades has reflected the comics as well as the political climate of the time, or raving about the trailer for May's Trek reboot, she's the real deal.

 

"As a kid, I was always around comics; my uncle is a comic-book artist. He would keep them in plastic; there was this sacred ritual of reading comics that was so important.

 

"I can't believe that now that's translated to a compliment about my persona. I'm like, 'Really?' It's something I bond with my brother about. There's definitely something in the blood

 

"My grandmother used to collect comics when she was younger, actually, and her mother threw out all her originals which is awful because she had the first Superman. I still cry about that sometimes. That's so messed up. That could've put me through college."

 

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Link: http://www.winnipegsun.com/entertainment/2...898076-sun.html

 

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Rosario Dawson was born in New York City, the daughter of Isabel, a plumber of Puerto Rican and African descent, and Greg Dawson, a construction worker of Native American and Irish descent. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the films Sin City, Rent, Men in Black II, The Adventures of Pluto Nash, Josie and the Pussycats, and Death Proof.

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Has anyone mentioned Joss Whedon? We've been rewatching Buffy recently and there's SOOO many trek references

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I knew of Rosario Dawson's affinity for comics, but did not know she was a Trek fan. I wonder which character is her favorite?

I like several of her films. I just recently saw the 25th Hour, which was really good.

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Here's the list updated once again:

  1. Colin Powell
  2. Dahlai Lama
  3. Tom Hanks
  4. Dr. Mae Jamieson
  5. Neil Armstrong
  6. Jean Simmons (actress)
  7. Paul Sorvino
  8. Mira Sorvino
  9. Berkeley Breathed (cartoonist - Opus, Bloom County)
  10. Bill Amend (cartoonist - Fox Trot)
  11. Seth McFarlane (creator of Family Guy)
  12. Bill Gates
  13. Al Gore
  14. Eddie Murphy
  15. Jason Alexander
  16. Dr. Stephen Hawking
  17. Scott Adams (cartoonist - Dilbert)
  18. Isaac Asimov
  19. Kelley Armstrong (author)
  20. Douglas Adams
  21. Carol Moseley Braun
  22. Christan Slater
  23. Whoopi Goldberg
  24. Most, if not all, of NASA
  25. Most, if not all, of Microsoft
  26. George Noory
  27. Art Bell
  28. Marc Scott Zicree
  29. Ben Browder
  30. Rockne S. O'Bannon
  31. Charles M. Schulz
  32. King Abdullah of Jordan
  33. Vin Diesel
  34. John Glenn
  35. Mel Gibson
  36. Sally Ride
  37. Mick Fleetwood
  38. James Worthy
  39. Bebe Neuworth
  40. Kelsey Grammer
  41. Tom Morello
  42. Martin Luther King Jr.
  43. Arthur C. Clarke
  44. Rod Serling
  45. Trey Parker
  46. Matt Stone
  47. Howard Stern
  48. Will Smith
  49. Iggy Pop
  50. Ben Stiller
  51. Conan O'Brien
  52. Kirstie Alley
  53. Tom Bergeron
  54. Beastie Boys
  55. Kevin Newman
  56. Richard Dean Anderson
  57. Drew Carey
  58. Eric McCormack
  59. Weird Al Yankovic
  60. Joss Whedon
  61. Mel Brooks
  62. Robert Atkins
  63. Kathy Lee Gifford
  64. Paul "Big Show" Wight
  65. George Lucas
  66. Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson
  67. Tim Allen
  68. Neal McDonough
  69. Barry Manilow
  70. Robin Williams
  71. Paul McGillion
  72. Jim Meddick (cartoonist - Monty)
  73. Dave Foley
  74. David Hewlett
  75. Number of people at Pixar Animation
  76. late Douglas Adams
  77. Alan Keyes (Repulican Senate candidate, Illinois)
  78. Dennis Haysbert
  79. Brad Paisley
  80. Jim Davidson
  81. Jonathan Ross
  82. The Wiggles
  83. Someone working on the kids' series Big Comfy Couch
  84. Jane Wiedlin (formerly of the GoGo's)
  85. David Reddick (cartoonist)
  86. Kevin Sorbo
  87. Tony Danza
  88. Bryan Singer
  89. David X. Cohen
  90. Alec Newman
  91. Jon Stewart
  92. Rick Rashid, the top researcher at Microsoft
  93. Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Canada)
  94. Quentin Tarantino
  95. Andy Dick
  96. Mark Hamill
  97. Angelina Jolie
  98. Graeme Edge, Moody Blues' drummer
  99. Kirsten Dunst
  100. Robin Curtis
  101. Jolene Blalock
  102. JJ Abrams
  103. Scott Bakula
  104. Sherrilyn Kenyon/Kinley MacGregor
  105. Will Sasso
  106. Tanya Huff
  107. Daniel Craig
  108. Someone in charge at Beavis and Butthead
  109. Joel Hodgson, Mike Nelson and the rest of the cast of Mystery Science Theater 3000
  110. Russell Crowe
  111. James Marsters
  112. President Barack Obama
  113. Nicole de Boer
  114. Iowa Senator Tom Harkin
  115. James Kevin Brown (baseball player)
  116. Vic Mignogna (voice of Edward Elric in popular anime Fullmetal Alchemist)
  117. Rosario Dawson

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Wow...what a list!Thank you, Takara, for that! The PRESIDENT is a fan? Cool. So many others...i'll have to either write down, or come back to that later. Keep up the good work!

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I remember Kevin Newman who did a short stint as host of Good Morning America was a trekkie (I don't know what happened to him - I think he has gone back to Canada)

 

And, I don't see Richard Dean Anderson on the list, Anderson, star and executive producer of Stargate SG1, thinks it would be cool for the SG1 team to go to another world and find an "away team" on the planet. :whistling:

I would like to see that kind of crossover event! Wild! Afriend of mine had said something to me about just that sort of scenario!I still recall that line of Jack's(Richard really made thecharacter, with his wit) when the Prometheus was about to be launched...''Sir'' Carter says, ''we can't name it the Enterprise''...... :lol:

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At least a few of the guys who do Robot Chicken, though that probably has been mentioned a time or two (yeah a tad lazy and about to head to work so didn't re-read the entire thread). I think I have to go back and watch a few of the shows my daughter watches, because I swear it was a Nick Jr or Playhouse Disney character that referenced Trek somewhere

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Someone involved with the TV series The Big Bang Theory must be a Star Trek fan too. There are frequent references and Takei and Wheaton have guest starred on the show this season.

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Add Mila Kunis to the list. Here's an excerpt from an article in GQ:

 

LOS ANGELES, Calif. --

 

Mila Kunis may have turned into a bombshell film star, but she is a geek at heart.

 

“I’m a massive Trekkie,” Mila told GQ’s August 2011 issue, after being asked about working with William Shatner in the film, “American Psycho 2,” in 2002.

 

“That was crazy,” she added of the experience. “He’s exactly what you think he is.”

 

As for that “Star Trek” obsession, Mila said she’s been a fan for years.

 

“I got into it in my late teens — 18, 19, 20. Something like that. I got into it later than most people. But let’s not talk about it in the past tense. I’m still a ‘Star Trek’ fan. You never stop being one,” she said.

 

While she may not use the now-accepted fan-approved word for “Star Trek” fans – “Trekkers” – she did admit to visiting a locale dedicated to memorabilia from the show.

 

“I went to the Star Trek Experience in Vegas maybe five years ago. I hung out with a bunch of fake characters inside Quark’s bar,” she told the mag. “There were all these actors there pretending to be the different characters from the different shows. Yes, I loved it.”

 

Beyond the visit to the franchise-related destination, Mila added that she has Leonard Nimoy’s autograph.

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Im guessing a writer or someone on WordWorld may be, watching an episode where Duck is trying to fill in for Pig and he is trying to prepare food for the feast. Supposed to spell out CORN, but grabs random letters and spells out Gorn AND Dorn. Made me think of Trek immediately.

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