Though these classifications can work on a certain level, for me there will always be two types of people. Fans and fanatics.
Being a fan is not a problem at all - everyone is a fan on some level or another of one thing or another. Heck, you can be a fan of potato salad and I'd consider that to be just as valid as being a fan of Star Trek because it's not about the subject matter itself - it's moreso about what your love for the subject matter tells others about yourself. But above all else what makes a fan such to me is that they know never to rely on any one of their fandoms much! Potato salad is good, but if I see someone binging on it well...I tend to think twice about them. And the same stands for being a fan of fiction really.
I, for example, like a good amount of the Star Wars mythos. But if someone decides to tell me of how the Clone Wars canon officially 'overrides' some of the stuff I might happen to like, I think to myself "So what? Just like whatever you like about Star Wars and I'll like what I like about it." You can quote me all the freaking G-Canon and C-Canon sources in the world, but if I liked something that is overriden by that through official canon, it'll stay in my head as the thing that happened regardless of what someone in a position of authority says otherwise. And I've never lacked finding people who think in a similarly relaxed way that I do. In fact you'd be surprised that the number of these types of fans is far higher than most assume, though the internet for example can warp that perspective beautifully because these types of fans aren't *nearly* as loud as the other type.
On the other hand there are the fanatics. If anything defines these people it's the fact that they just can't let go of their subject matter. It's like trying to pull a stick out of a dog's mouth. Either it has the elitists bludgeoning others with canon to death so as to stroke their own egoes, regardless of how important that peice of canon actually is to get everyone onto the same page, or it has the obsessives going on drama binges when you tell them that you don't think much of their favorite part of whatever they adore. It doesn't matter much in the end, because *both* types lack any kind of perspective of the fact that hey...the stuff they're a fan of isn't all that important in their life! It's just a *part* of life, so get over it already!
I think it's safe to say that I've grown tired of talking about things I'm a fan of though, or if I do it I am very careful about the person with whom I happen to talk about it. Because either the loss of perspective in the case of fanatics or ultimately not much to talk about in the case of fans tends to guarantee that the discussion would be unsatisfying. There are a few fans out there, who can actually fall into a comfortable medium zone too I guess, but they are very few and far between indeed.
