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

Under-represented aspects:

[Penguinisto]

Astroturfing?

Sometimes a company likes to promote the idea that they actually have a fan base (you know, to generate 'buzz', stomp bad opinions against them, etc etc). See also Microsoft (though they are hardly alone in this). Incidentally, political figures and ideologies have a good parallel in fanboys and astroturfing as well.

Trolls?

Sometimes it can be (at least in my case years ago, it used to be) great fun to go in and advocate for The Other Side (tm), just to see what folks would do with it. Sometimes it's done to simply incite a reaction (a digital equivalent of throwing a stink bomb into a football locker room @ high school, or the chess club meeting, if you prefer), but sometimes it can be done to get folks on all sides to stop and think. You can tell very fast, depending on advocacy and style, if the reactions are by blinkered unthinking fanboys, or if there's some actual insight and thought that folks have put into their decision to support something.

Both cases tend to make the whole thing not so clear-cut, and I think the author should have discussed those a bit more, as they are large factors IMHO.

/P