Ben Casselman writes at FiveThirtyEight:
Spock, after all, was both what I was and what I hoped to be: a nerdy, socially awkward outsider who not only got to explore strange new worlds but became fast friends with the dashing, cool-kid captain…
But Spock was also something that, in retrospect, mattered to me even more deeply: a scientist. Those oh-so-precise odds were a gag, but the ideals that Spock embodied — that logic can point the way to morality, that evidence is the basis for truth, that curiosity matters more than dogma — were powerful influences that resonate even as the show’s hackneyed plots and on-the-cheap special effects have come to feel dated.
I have to agree. I generally don’t care in the slightest about celebrity deaths, but I find Leonard Nimoy’s significant because of the role Spock played in my grade school years. I would watch Star Trek at my grandparents’ house, and I distinctly remember the impact it had on my world view and my imagination.
And, so, I leave this here. Spock, I have been, and always shall be, your fan.