In celebration of the San Diego Comic Con, USA Today has an amusing article examining the so-called “fanboy” phenomenon. (One thing I’ve never understood–why are those people who paint their bare stomachs at ballgames and name their kids after football players just “fans,” while anyone who owns a Star Wars toy is a “fanboy“? Not a new observation I know, but whatever.) I went to the SDCC in 2003 and would love to go back someday. That’s one point DG has in favor of moving to Cali.
Before anyone asks, no, I haven’t had the chance to read Deathly Hallows yet. Blame Tom. DG burned through it in seven hours though. I’ll try to get through it by the end of the weekend, then maybe we can have a little spoiler-filled discussion here.
Before I forget, congrats to Sean for breaking the 10K barrier on his Xbox Gamerscore. Way to go, fanboy! (I kid because I love.)
On a side note, I decided to remove the “What I’m Reading” section, mostly because it felt a little too much like that Twitter thing I tried a while back–too much pressure to constantly update.
Thanks. My 360 celebrated by red ringing me last night. I’m not even kidding.
Ohhhhhhhh…suck. I’m sorry dude.
I haven’t really used my 360 in weeks. Now I’m scared to.
I was going to buy a 360, but im going to wait at least another six months to a year to wait and get all the problems sorted out.
You know what’s funny about Big Guy’s statement. There are people at launch who cited the mantra – “I’ll wait six months to a year for them to get the kinks out.” Here we are closing in on 2 years and the kinks are still in. Granted, Sean’s is not a launch box but close to one so its time had to arrive at some point. But the box I procured in March had a born on date of Feb ’07 and that was D.O.A.
There’s a reason Peter Moore is no longer at Microsoft and that reason is called ‘scapegoat.’
With Sean’s dying, Mookie remains the only person I know in possession of their original 360. And that guy keeps his on for hours when he is not using it so you just know it’s gonna’ die horribly. If the overuse doesn’t kill it than the fact he keeps shoving titles like Cars and Call of Juarez into its pie hole surely will.
And as much grief as I’ve tossed at Sony for their costly PS3, I’ll say this much. It certainly seems to be sturdy. I haven’t heard a whisper of issues with that hardware. Maybe they learned something from their PS2 debacle.
Speaking of PS3 – Sean, this one is for you – go to Gamespot or 1UP and check out the live video demonstration of the MGS4 gameplay (just hit last night). Amazing stuff.
I always thought fanboy was a title that fanboys thrust upon themselves – sort of like Harry Knowles using ‘geek’ as a term of endearment. Anyway – it’s all the same. Fan is derived from fanatic and I would hazard a guess that they’re all pretty derogatory if one chooses to take it that way.
I’d call myself a videogame fanboy and I’m fine with someone else throwing that title at me. No ‘enthusiast’ or ‘collector’ for this self-abashed game geek.
I’ll say this much – I enjoy games, genre flicks and sports in equal measure. In the same breath, I carry equal amounts of derision for the guy that paints his dome silver for a Pats game or the guy who engages in a little Cosplay as Bullet Witch.
There is such a thing as restraint.
@Big Guy: I am hoping they’ll have it sorted out with the new hardware later this year. Should run cooler, quieter and on less juice.
Oops, I was thinking the fanboy post was another post… anyway, I’m agreeing with Ed on this one and I believe it can be used within the geek community as a positive and negative term.
When applied to extreme cases of fandom, it is meant to be negative… but then, that is by one who believes they are *normal* in their fanatical practices, right?
While I have been collecting comics for over 20 years, I by no means consider myself a fanboy because I’m not passionate or emotional enough about any of them. I think that’s the difference between a fan and a fanboy.
Has this rambling comment made any sense?
There’s a simple formula used to segregate the fan from the fanboy.
A fan reads Man-Thing.
A fanboy dresses up like Man-Thing.
Extreme caution should be taken when using this formula. Some subjects may look like they are dressing up as Man-Thing when in fact, nature has merely selected them to look like Man-Thing. In such cases, these unfortunate beings are merely ‘fans’.
Ah yes, the “LARP Maxim.”