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Fanboy Theory
- FrankBooth 15y agoIn which a fanboy attempts to justify his fanboyism.
- loso 15y agoI don't agree with this at all. Most of time, when I see charges of "fanboyism" it is when a person is attacking, or is known for attacking, the choices of others. For example, "You use Windows over Macs? You must like viruses". Or "You have an IPhone and not an Android, then you must not care about being open". Most rational people will not get mad if someone loves a particular product. But they will get mad if someone is constantly insulting the product choices that they have made. It's fine to love one product and not like another. But don't let condescension, even if it is subtle, come out while you are discussing it. That is what brings the blow back.
- tobtoh 15y agoIt's a bit like discussing choices in religious ... if you say your beliefs are the correct ones, what does that say about my differing beliefs ...
- laconian 15y agoCould this article be considered a quine? It both describes fanboyism and IS fanboysim at the same time!
- pork 15y agoNo, just ironic.
- landhar 15y agoWhy wouldn't the same mechanism apply for banks? There are also a big variety of banks to chose from and people tend to pick one and stick with if for a while. But you don't see BofA/Chase/YouNameIt fanboys.
- tobtoh 15y agoThat's an interesting point - it's obviously not 'choices' per se that causes 'fanboyism' ... so what is it? Emotional attachment? I could understand that with say religious choices, but why do people get so attached to their phones then?
- angli 15y agoThe are a couple of possible reasons I see: 1. Hackers, and the kind people who really care about this kind of thing want to have the best; if someone says it isn't the best, even implicitly by saying that they prefer a competitor, we get defensive. 2. What companies you choose can be seen as a single pieve of what some perceive as an ideological struggle. Google the defender of openness, and Apple the harsh dictator, managing user experience with an iron fist. 3. People have their phones nearby nearly 24/7. It's possible a subconscious attachment to it develops in people, though I don't know the psychology of it.
- MaysonL 15y agoCredit unions are better.
- kbob 15y ago"If you publicly express an opinion that any particular platform is best for a significant portion of buyers, you’re effectively saying that the people who chose differently were _wrong_." That's the fallacy right there. "A is better than B" does not imply "B is bad". But a fanboy, who's gotten his identity and sense of self-worth tangled up with his product choices, has made a tremendous effort to rationalize his purchase of A to the point where he believes B must be bad. Any evidence that B is not bad forces him to rationalize the evidence away. Two things make it easy to slip into fanboyism about phones. The manufacturers' marketing keeps telling us that owning A will make you one of the cool kids, encouraging us to derive self-worth from the product. We also have to rationalize spending money, perhaps more money than we can afford. Most of us don't get nearly so emotional about, say, shampoo, because we can easily afford to buy any brand we like or switch brands on a whim.