WHAT IS SHIPPING?

Shipping is the desire by fans for two or more people to be in a relationship, romantic, friendship or otherwise. It is considered a general term for fans' emotional involvement with the ongoing development of a relationship. Shipping can involve virtually any kind of relationship from the well-known and established, to the ambiguous or those undergoing development, and even to the highly improbable or blatantly impossible.

HISTORY BEHIND SHIPPING

The first "ship" that became widely popular and accepted was the characters Kirk and Spock from the television show Star Trek that began in the mid-1970s. The actual term "shipping" was originated in the mid-1990s by internet fans of the TV show The X-Files, who believed the two main characters, Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, should be or were engaged in a romantic relationship. They called themselves "relationshippers," at first then R'shipper, 'shipper, and finally just shipper which is what we use in the common day.