On fanboys

Not quite as evocative of the archetype, accurate as it may be.

Yahtzee wrote a similar piece in Extra Punctuation recently: ā€œTo Hell with Commentsā€

A userā€™s particular attachment to and emotional investment in a cliche doesnā€™t really validate the continued use of one at everyone elseā€™s expense.

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If thereā€™s one thing the ā€œfake geekā€ phenomena has taught us, delegitimizing fangirlsā€™ rights to be viewed as JUST AS ANNOYING as the menfolk is unfair, no matter how much I love the fedora-wearing utilikilted neckbeard Comic Book Guy stereotype.

Which is more abusive to the general readership of a given forum?

Those who brusquely call other posters fanboys in a terse attempt to dismiss/derail them?

Or the fanboys whose utterances are often abusive, ill-tempered, irrrational, and not intended so much to foster conversation as to browbeat and silence those who disagree with them in a respectful, substantive manner?

Surely the latter, I think.

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Oh, the former means nothing to the latter, surely. I suppose Iā€™m not arguing with you from this clarification, it seemed like you were arguing with my other point. I was disappointed with the overgendered stereotype, not the existence of idiots that turn every discussion into a trainwreck.

There, fixed that for you.

Sincerely,
a honest Apple user.

Zealot?
Cultist?

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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 ā€œhaterā€ 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.

Iā€™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 Altemeyerā€™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 ā€” 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 ā€” a general aggressiveness directed against deviants, outgroups, and other people that are perceived to be targets according to established authorities.
Conventionalism ā€” 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 oneā€™s society should also be required to adhere to these norms

Right-wing authoritarianism

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.

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the crap popping in all over the place stopped me

Turn off JavaScript. I browse with scripting turned off by default, and whitelist the sites I trust. The article looked great.

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Whilst this looks like snark, itā€™s notā€¦

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