Comment by rs186
Star Wars and Star Trek mean very little to people outside "Western" countries. If you go to China, most people won't understand a thing about Star Wars, including computer nerds/science fiction fans. And they live their life just fine.
Don't assume certain things that happened during a certain period are universal to everybody.
China I would expect not to know about Western cultural phenomena. But Star Trek references made it into Japanese animation like the Daicon IV opening (1983) and Dirty Pair (1985?) and quite a few others. It was a globally popular series.