Ha, very nice post, and one that I agree with.oneshotfinchy said:I only call fanboy when somebody says something is objectively wrong in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. That or criticise their opposition rather than their arguments. That or criticise something they have very limited experience in.
*cough*
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-40-Heavens-to-Metroid
*cough*
http://screwattack.com/videos/GAME-ANTITHINKER-History-of-Video-Games
*cough*
http://screwattack.com/videos/TGO-Episode-42-Worst-Person
It's quite obvious that MovieBob is trying to quell the fanboy criticisms that he's had thrown his way, but overall it comes across as rather weak.
As with all Internet lingo, fanboy has no actual definition set in stone, so Bob is free to create his own particular definition and viewpoint on the word and construct arguments on the usage of it, but I can't help but feel like MovieBob deliberately ignored what his decriers mean when they call him a fanboy in order to attack a misrepresentation of his opponents opinions. Which is essentially a Straw Man argument, par the course in regards to most of MovieBob's arguments.
To me a somewhat similar example to Bob's argument goes like this: Person A calls Person B Ignorant, only to have Person B respond; "Person A believes that everyone should be imprisoned within a Library and forced to learn and read all that they can because Person A hates ignorance". Person A may well hate ignorance, as people on the Internet may well hate MovieBob's fanboy behaviour, but that doesn't mean both want to inflict some sort of totalitarian hell hole on the populace. Person A doesn't want cruelly enforced education and nerd culture doesn't want complete equilibrium where everything is regarded as equal and one must not place something before another. I mean, really, how can you say that stuff with a serious voice?
Moviebob, when people are calling you a fanboy it isn't because you like something above another, and it certainly isn't to restore balance to the Internet. Most of the time people are calling you a fanboy because of your actions, your attitudes and your arguments. Essentially, they aren't calling you a fanboy for liking something, they call you a fanboy for being a douche about liking something, and that massive difference is what this all comes down to. When you make a point of being hostile in liking something or not liking something then, that's when the word fanboy comes out to play
If I say that "I like Metroid: Other M", I doubt I would be called a Fanboy for that. A fan, yeah maybe, but as I'm not being a douche about it I doubt the word will turn up. If I said "I Like Metoid: Other M and people who disagree with me are racist" then yeah, fanboy would come up much more often, but only because I'm being a douche in exerting my opinions, not because of the opinion itself. If I said "I like Killzone" I wouldn't be called a fanboy, if I said "The 360 sucks, Gaylo: Reach around is a terrible game and Killzone 2 is the best thing ever made" then I would be called a fanboy. Again, not because of the opinion, but because of how I express.
However fanboy does equally mean someone who is just a fan of something with no negative connotations involved, however you rarely see this aspect of Fanboy used in any sort of argument, but rather used as identifying oneself as a fan of something.
The word seems to be at a crossroads between being a douche about expressing your opinions on a show/movie/game/genre/website etc and just being a fan, this thread shows this greatly. There are many people on this thread calling themselves Big Picture fanboys, and I doubt they call themselves that for any other reason then saying that they like the show. Words change overtime, and this is true at 10x speed over the Internet.
Neither definition involves anyone wanting balance though. If fanboy means fan, someone calling you an x fanboy means that you like x which has nothing to do with balancing anything, it's just a statement. Somewhat redundant, but whatever. If fanboy means someone who expresses his opinions in such a way that antagonises others, then this isn't an attempt to balance things out either, but is actually someone criticising your attitudes and arguments. The term fanboy can be ignored completely, and if that happened I would doubt that the long, scathing paragraphs that replace Fanboy would be in anyway considered to be some sort of act to balance out opinions and make sure that 'everything gets its cookie'.