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Certainly not all future writers and creators who grew up in this era went on to write fanfiction. Some put those toys away for good. Some of them (albeit a distinct minority) grew up to be Joss Whedon. Much like Rex Stout speculating on the parentage of Lord Peter Wimsey, Whedon has spent some time considering the lineage of his own characters with relation to the culture of our youth: “If you are going to tell me Han Solo isn’t the father of Malcom Reynolds, then I am going to laugh and laugh and laugh…Kirk was also, I would say, Malcom’s weird uncle.”
Could I get a fic for that?

Fic: Why Fanfiction is Taking Over The World by Anne Jamison
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The idea of fan cultures, or “fandoms,” cultivating fan fiction writers began at the earliest in the 1920s with societies dedicated to Jane Austen and Sherlock Holmes, but took off in the late 1960s with the advent of Star Trek fanzines. The negative stereotype of fans today is that of obsessed geeks, like Trekkies, who love nothing more than to watch the same installments over and over… However, this represents a core misunderstanding of what it is to be a fan: that is, to have the “ability to transform personal reaction into social interaction, spectatorial culture into participatory culture… not by being a regular viewer of a particular program but by translating that viewing into some kind of cultural activity.” Henry Jenkins, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and expert on fan culture, likens fan fiction to the story of The Velveteen Rabbit: that the investment in something is what gives it a meaning rather than any intrinsic merits or economic value. For fans who invest in a television show, book, or movie, that investment sparks production, and reading or viewing sparks writing, until the two are inseparable. They are not watching the same thing over and over, but rather are creating something new instead.

Casey Fiesler, Everything I Need To Know I Learned from Fandom: How Existing Social Norms Can Help Shape the Next Generation of User-Generated Content, p173 (via fanhackers)

If I may put in my two cents? I’m probably a bit older then the average tumblr user, being 34. I was a teenager in the 90s, before the internet was a big thing. I was also a humongous Star Trek geek…and virtually alone in my love of the show among my peers.

I found a collection of ‘the best of trek’ (one of the old fanzines) at my local used bookstore (which I still have by the way), and this was the first time, aside from official  novels, that I realized that *I* could contribute something to a fandom, even if it was just for myself.

So I wrote a bit of fanfiction and I realized it was okay to really love a show and characters. Now that I’m older I may have moved on to other fandoms, and I’m so very very grateful to tumblr and the communities and friends that I’ve found.

the “ability to transform personal reaction into social interaction, spectatorial culture into participatory culture… not by being a regular viewer of a particular program but by translating that viewing into some kind of cultural activity.”

This. This is what I love about being a fan, about tumblr, about all of you who create things and read and enjoy the things I create.