Fanboyism is a real phenomenon, as anybody who has ever been to a gamer forum can attest. What is a tired cliche is that everyone who criticizes a particular game is a “hater” when in fact most such people are genuine fans who just want to report flaws in the game in the hope of getting them fixed.
I’ve generally found it is the fanboys who respond to disagreements by launching into personal insults, calling people liars and denying well-documented problems that even the developers admit to (see Guild Wars 2 forums). Very few people will attack you for saying something positive about a game, unless it is an outright lie or obvious PR hype.
The willingness of people to lie and attack people on behalf of corporations that could give a fuck about them has always amazed me, but it fits in with Bob Altemeyer’s concept of the right-wing authoritarian personality. When you look into the behavior clusters that typify this personality type, the cliquish fanaticism and extreme hostility towards dissenters of the fanboy begins to make sense:
Authoritarian submission — a high degree of submissiveness to the authorities who are perceived to be established and legitimate in the society in which one lives.
Authoritarian aggression — a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
Conventionalism — a high degree of adherence to the traditions and social norms that are perceived to be endorsed by society and its established authorities, and a belief that others in one’s society should also be required to adhere to these norms
It is is also interesting to note that fanboys often use right-wing memes of the type you see on Fox News, such as accusing critics of being entitled, lazy, and not willing to work for anything within games, as if a video game is some kind of massive welfare program being delivered to users for free.
