Hey there,

Aren't you tired of the nagging? The gloating? Or the pathetic whining that appears on any forum you go to? No, i am not talking about people that nag in general. No, i am talking about the fabled...

You know, the kind of people that love a certain story, game, book or whatever so much that they feel the need to "defend" that special something from anyone that does not share the same opinion of their beloved product. Fanboys feel that their special product is threatened when people have a negative opinion about their loved thing, causing a negative response from the fanboy to try and hurt that person...or at least throw him or her off balance. Now if the person that the fanboy is writing their "defense" to is actually another fanboy, the conversation often ends in a battle in which the fanboys from both sides try and convince eachother that their product is better. This can also be called a fanboy war...

Fanboys come in all shapes, sizes and all levels of mental health. The term "fanboy" is politically incorrect, as this may be used for either a male or a female. People become fanboys because of a number of reasons, often being a fanboy of more then one product or service. Fanboys also have different levels of social awareness, the worst ones being the fanboys that will whine or gloat on forums just to start an argument for fun.

It is impossible to determine when fanboys first appeared. This is largely due to the many types of fanboys that exsist. You could argue that fanboy-ism started when the entertaining business began. Others could argue that, when looking at political circles, fanboys have always been present, shouting around propaganda about their favorite candidate. However it may be, some fanboys do stand out from others. There are the fanboys that love books and movies, such as the Star Trek, Lord of the Rings and Star Wars fanboys. There are also fanboys in sports, like football hooligans...

And then there are videogame fanboys. Now off course there are fanboys of a single game like Halo, Killzone or Crysis. However, the biggest fanboy wars occur around game platforms or rather around the famous question of which one is best. The biggest contest being between the Sony fanboys and the Microsoft fanboys. These fanboys will take any strengths their platform or game has or any weaknesses that the other platforms or games have as arguments to be used in support their own platforms or as ammunition to throw at fanboys supporting the other platforms, fueling the fanboy war which seems to go on eternally. This to the dismay of the normal people that are just on the forums to discuss the game or hardware.

Now you may ask yourself: Am i a fanboy? Well let's find out. Please look at the following pictures and see if any angry feelings stir up. Here goes...

One for Sony:

One for Microsoft (XBox 360):

One for Nintendo:

And the last one for PC.

Nothing? Really? Excellent! You are a normal, sane person who likes videogames. If the above pictures did stir up some bad feelings, well... I... I just don't know what to say...

Noone knows if fanboys will ever stop to exsist. If they will ever stop to annoy the casual gamers on the forums with their fanboy rantings. Maybe one day, we can all enjoy our games and share our opinions without anyone trolling on our posts because we do not like something as much as they do. Untill then, all i can say is...