Shipping
This spread through many posts rather than one canonical upload.
1996·Early web, before YouTube
Wanting two characters, or two real people, to be a couple, and saying so.
At a glanceThe facts
- Remembered as
- OTP
- Spread in
- 1996
- Format
- Phenomenon
- Where it started
- Online fans of The X-Files, about 1995, who wanted the two leads together
- Original title
- From “relationshippers”, shortened to “shippers”
- Origin
- No single original
- Available
- Not held by ViralWorld
What this wasThe story
Naming and advocating a relationship between characters, with portmanteau names, ship wars and a vocabulary — canon, OTP, crack ship — that escaped fandom entirely. Named on X-Files newsgroups in the 1990s and made a mass activity by LiveJournal and Tumblr.
TimelineIn order
- Made
Fan fiction pairing Kirk and Spock of Star Trek is popular in fanzines, written with a slash between the names.1
- Made
X-Files fans begin calling themselves relationshippers.1
- Later
The earliest uses of “ship” and “shipper” that the Oxford English Dictionary records, on Usenet.1
What it createdWhat came out of it
- The vocabulary that followed: OTP for “one true pairing”, blended names for couples, and ships that have “sailed” or “sunk”.1
Why it is here: something the internet still knows by name · it got out of its own corner of the internet fast · still being watched and quoted years later
Where it came fromWhat we know
This spread through many posts rather than one identifiable original. No copy is held here — what it was, when it spread and what people called it is what this page can tell you.
Nothing here is claimed to be the first version of this. It spread through many posts rather than from one identifiable original.
Not established. This index only names a creator where the evidence supports it.
SourcesWhat was read
Sources last read on . That date is about the history on this page. Whether the media still plays is checked separately and can change any day. How ViralWorld documents things