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In Defense of the Fanboy
An anonymous reader writes "Ran across a great article over at TV Squad regarding obsessive internet fanboys. It's funny and pretty dead on about how we all benefit from the monomania of the typical fanboy." Where would my own useless mental database of knowledge about Green Lantern and Mobile Suit Gundam be without fanboys? Probably out on a date, but for now, thank a fanboy!
And you can be a fanboy of the Oakland Raiders and noone blinks an eye...
Well, I live in Croatia.
We have probably the worst-behaved fans in the world, second only to the English.
And the UK plays nice with the rest of the world, so they don't export their misbehaving fans.
But even without that, I don't understand football, and neither do many of my friends.
So whenever somebody starts talking football, we look at them just like they'd look at us if we started discussing Indo-European linguistics or Windows vs. Linux.
Ignore this signature. By order.
... Clearly fangirls have better things to do.
Whatever your bag, the internet has the ability to promote it beyond whatever was possible prior to having such a simple medium of information exchange.
The best part is you aren't judged for your expression beyond the content of that expression. The worst part is the empowerment by way of obscure unity provided to the "fan boy" who reads without question of credibility. It's a problem when righteousness ensues a night of staying up till 6am washing down caffeine pills with ballz soda.
Media hasn't changed folks, only the medium.
Ever done a `man` on `top` ?
I believe fanboyism is fine, like most things, in moderation.
I'm an obsessive gamer. And Otaku. And... well, okay, I'm a lot of varieties of nerd/geek. And I do spend a lot more time involved in these activities than most people would consider "normal," but I keep boundaries.
As much as I love some particular items that have come from the Japanese culture, I have no intentions of moving to Japan, learning the language (it'd be sweet to order things that won't come to America/get it early, but it's an extremely complicated and, in my opinion, somewhat archaic language. English may be complicated grammatically, but we still only use 26 characters, most of which are identical to Romance/Germanic languages. And, as a multi-lingual friend has said to me, other than our grammar, English's biggest problem, if anything, is that it's overly simple in structure.). I don't believe the Japanese are a superior race. (I believe they're people. Which means I believe them capable of amazing things, but most of them are still as stupid as the average homo sapien)
I guess what I'm saying is the difference between a good and bad fanboy is, at the end of the day, the good fanboy keeps his obsessive hobbies in check. He might like to dress up as a Jedi or a Star Fleet Commander for fun, but that's all it is: fun.
Beware when you use the term fanboy.
One sense refers to the focused and deep-delving geeks/nerds which are the radiant source of geek chic.
Another sense refers to unreasonable and often belligerent adherence to favored ideas.
Earnest exploration and revelry: awesome.
Sectarianism, jingoism, groupthink, witch hunting, xenophobia, and shoddy reasoning catalyzed by wishful thinking and cognitive dissonance: not so much.
I've always defined fanboy differently. To me, "fanboy" means a person, usually a teenager, who is aggressively and blindly obsessed with something to the point of going batshit crazy if somebody criticizes it. Usually their obsession is a movie, video game or band. They deflect criticism with flames and amazing leaps of logic (like "yeah, the game crashes every five minutes, but that only makes it more challenging and weeds out the noobs who aren't hardcore enough"). If the fanboy's target of obsession has some kind of competiton, they will irrationally attack it at every turn, just because it's a competitor.
Fanboys suck balls.
No one deserves a girl they don't go for. Simple as that.
Have you heard of Marie Curie?
Grandma Moses? Georgia O'Keefe? Frida Kahle?
Jane Austen? Emily Dickenson? Maya Angelou? Mary Shelley?
Harriet Tubman? Susan B. Anthony? Sacajawea? Florence Nightingale?
Women have not been repressed, but they have been suppressed at times.
There is a fine line between recklessness and courage... -- Paul McCartney