The Psychology of Fanboys

Testiiiiing writes "CoolTechZone.com's Gundeep Hora publishes his thoughts on why fanboys act the way they do. 'For fanboys (and I use the term with utmost respect, at least for this article), their appetite to support their favorite company to beat the big, bad corporate heavyweights gets delusional at times. And why not? After all, we all like to cheer the underdog... reasonably. In addition to cheering for the little guy, fanboys also think it's their responsibility to spread the word about their favorite company. Combine their need to do marketing on behalf of their adopted companies and their products with the passion to make others see things their way, and you have a powerful group of people.'"

Comments

But how do you explain the M$ fanboys?

[Anonymous Coward]

M$ is clearly not an underdog, and I work with a guy who is quite a fanboy....

I usually get called...

[daveschroeder]

...a "fanboy" (or, more often, "fanboi", and sometimes even "fangirl") when I disseminate correct information about Apple on slashdot, clarify a misleading story, or correct completely and utterly factually and provably incorrect claims. It's not even about trying to "convert" anyone to anything. I usually respond by asking if the person calling me a "fanboi" could point out anything incorrect that I said in my post. That is usually followed up with brilliant posts about sex acts.

So, here's another question: this article is called "The Psychology of Mac Zealots"; what's the "psychology" of people who instantly call anyone who posts anything about Apple a "fanboy"? The article talks about how "fanboys" might be right, but also says that being anonymous and abusive (and therefore annoying) when making their point is a hallmark of a "fanboy". So how can a person who is neither (and also is correct about a factual point) a "fanboy"?

It isn't about "rooting for the underdog" or trying to create "converts" (directly, anyway). It's about wanting correct information disseminated about something you're interested in. And if it adds factual information to the discussion, what's wrong with that? To me, saying that something is obviously better or "rocks" or that something else "sucks" with no logical reasoning to back it up is what makes someone a "fanboy".

Cue the posts calling me a "fanboy fanboi"!

Hardly.

[bynary]

In addition to cheering for the little guy

Sony is hardly "the little guy". In other words, fanboyism exists at all levels of the market.

Fanboy: Possibly the most abused term ever

[AKAImBatman]

When someone uses the term "fanboy", it tends to conjure up an image of someone who is so fanatical in their support that they ignore all logic and reality in pursuit of ensuring that their company is the one that wins "the war". (Whatever that may be.) As such, it tends to be a rather derogatory term used to discount someone from a discussion because their fanaticism makes their opinion useless.

Unfortunately, there's a growing trend of abuse in relation to the term. More and more I'm hearing *real* fanboys preemptively use the term to discount others. For example, any true fan of a game system should be willing to acknowledge its faults as well as its strengths. I very much enjoy my Nintendo Wii, but I know that its low cost came at the expense of raw horsepower. That doesn't bother me. Similarly, PS3 fans should be willing to acknowledge that their system is incredibly expensive (in comparison to the rest of the market) and that there is a fairly small game library at the moment.

Yet what I regularly hear is the PS3 fanboys jump in and yell, "Anyone who likes the Wii is a Nintendo fanboy! After all, how could you not like a $600 Bluray player! The game system is FREE!" Or something to that effect, anyway. ;)

This constitutes an outright abuse of the term. Now I'll admit that it doesn't help the situation that many Wii fans (and even worse: fanboys) don't like Sony or their business practices. So they tend to cheer on any difficulties that the company may be having. (I'll even admit to this myself. I don't want Sony around if they're going to install rootkits, shut down distributors, sell exploding parts, ignore customer service, or the billion other anti-consumer things they've done of late.) That still doesn't justify the abuse.

Similarly, a lot of Windows users are simply familiar with what they are used to. So they're not so much as fanatical themselves, they're just highly resistant to solid logic that's often used by the Mac community. They're also quite used to the Mac users of yore, who were very much fanboys. (I'm sorry, Mac OS 8 was NOT that great of an OS.) So they also abuse the term in an attempt to get people to stop pestering them about how much better the Mac is. They're comfortable, so they don't want to be bothered. Sometimes they even become a sort of inverse fanboy in that they hang onto ever possible wrong they see with the opposition. (Case in point: Java is slow.) Never mind if it's still true or not. It was once at least sort of true, so that's good enough.

So next time you think of using the term "fanboy", think for a moment. You may be abusing the term and making yourself look bad at the same time.