The Science Behind Fanboyism

crookedvulture writes "We've all encountered fanboys. They lurk on messageboards and in comment threads, ready to trumpet the benefits of their product or brand of choice with Cheeto-stained fingertips. And it's not their fault. This analysis of the scientific research on the subject reveals that our brains unconsciously develop an affinity for products we choose over similarly attractive alternatives. Duh, right? But what's really interesting is that this affinity exists not just among adults, but also children, monkeys, and even amnesic subjects with no memory of their original choices. We're all hard-wired to be fanboys, it seems. Some of us just do a better job of overcoming our subconscious tendencies."

Re:Still out on...

[Applekid]

The dick part comes in when you love something and some other imbecile shows up and starts shitting all over it with false and misleading information - trolling - purposeful or otherwise, then arguments and insults ensue...

Or, you know, shitting all over it with the truth.

THE FIGHT IS ON

Seriously, though, there really ought to be two words to extract out of fanboy: one related to being a fan of a product and the other related to being a boy (child) about defending it. Criticism, legitimate or not, shouldn't lead to rabid mouth foaming. I'm pretty surprised that it exists in nature since it seems that it wouldn't serve any useful purpose.

Re:Still out on...

[Dunbal]

ie. Apple customer. Hey what? Someone had to say it, might as well be me.

Re:Tribalism

[Talderas]

So why use Windows in a case where Linux is superior, and Windows where Linux is superior?

Subtle. Very subtle, fanboy.

I almost missed it.

Re:Still out on...

[JTsyo]

Probably an offshoot of defending the tribe. Easiest to see these days are at sporting events. There must be something in the brain that will make us stand and fight for our "side", even if it's in the wrong, that links back to defending your tribe to ensure your genes keep going.

Re:subconscious tendencies

[Col. Klink (retired)]

The amazing thing about bias is our ability to see it in everyone but ourselves. I think it was best summarized by Homer Simpson with "Everyone is stupid except me."

But I'm sure your preference for exclusively making comments enclosed in teletype text tags is perfectly rational.

This whole "famboyism" meme is a load of bull

[Theovon]

Honestly, I think that calling someone a "fanboy" is just an ad hominem attack that people use when someone else's favorite thing is different from your favorite thing. The fact is, people come to like things, and they enjoy talking about them. Some people won't shut up about football. It's their thing. They enjoy it. They may seem unwilling to admit that basketball is an equally valid sport, from an objective point of view, because to them, football is the best thing. EVERYONE has this kid of narrow perspective on SOMETHING. However, while they may be narrow about it, calling them a fanboy is nothing but a way to completely dismiss every argument they make, even those that may be perfectly valid and useful. Maybe they are wrong that basketball sucks, but they may be equally correct that football is awesome.

Let's try an example. Richard Dawkins is an atheism fanboy. In fact, he's a great scientist and educator. I understand evolutionary biology very well, but this guy could run rings around me when it comes to depth of knowledge and the ability to explain it clearly to others. On the other hand, he's got a bug up his ass about the evils of religion. Many of his complaints are perfectly legitimate, of course, because various religions have been the cause of massive atrocities. Moreover, our scientific understanding has brought us to the point that the vast majority of things that humans once attributed to gods are in fact the result of completely natural processes that follow consistent physical laws. With regard to the vast majorty of the world, it is completely unnecessary and even perhaps inappropriate to evoke "God" as part of the explanation. That being said, an absence of evidence does not imply evidence of absence. For all we know, "God" could be inhabitants of a meta universe wherein our universe is a computer simulation, and they have made occasional tweaks to keep the simulation running right. So, Dawkins has taken his lack of evidence for God and taken a leap of faith that there definitly isn't one, and rather than just being a proponent of atheism, he is vehement about it, attempting to persuade people of the "truth" of his belief. He should stick to being a fantastic scientist and picking at specific problems that religions cause (in any case, religions are human constructs), and stop being so forceful about something he can't really prove. He can prove evolution. He can't prove atheism. Evolution is good science. Atheism is a belief, taken on faith, even if it is in fact highly plausible, with the alternatives having very little support. (I am inclined to think that agnosticism is the only belief without faith, because it doesn't assert anything specific, but I could be wrong about that.)

The point I'm making here is that Dawkins has some errors in his reasoning that might make some people dismiss him. If you're religious and he attacks your religion, then you're not going to want to listen to him talk about evolution. But in fact, he's one of the BEST people to listen to if you want to understand evolution.

I was thinking of going on with some other example about Mac fanboys, but I'm running out of time. For me, I'm just getting old and I prefer the fact that a Mac doesn't make me babysit basic things like connecting to wifi or backing up files. But my idiology places usability concerns first, with issues of "free software" coming second. The point is that many Mac fanboys have religious fervor. Nothing can touch the awesomeness of a Mac. But I'm sure you can anticipate what I'm going to say next: Even if their knowledge of Windows and Linux is completely wrong, they know tons about Macs and you might learn something from that.

Re:No, not duh

[Daetrin]

It's an attempt to head off the inevitable attempts to discredit the article. Pretty much every science article on Slashdot suffers from one or more lame attacks on its credibility/importance. (I don't know if there's a set of slashdot anti-fanboys, or if it's just simply that there's always someone with poor logic skills who disagrees with any given article.)

The most popular attacks are:

Correlation does not equal causation: Used whenever statistics are involved, even if the researchers who did the study make no claims of causation.

Useless: They simply can't think of any good use for whatever is being discussed, so they just make fun of it.

Too early: The idea is years or possibly decades away from production. Will often be accompanied by comments like "we see a story like this every few months/years and it's always 5-10 years away from production, it's never going to happen." There will often be at least one reference to "where's my flying car?"

Too late: Either of the form "this is old news, there was an article talking about this subject weeks/months/years ago, what's up with the editors at Slashdot?" or "Everyone knew that already! Why are they wasting time researching that?" Will often be accompanied by "Scientists discover that water is wet, news at 11."

Obviously this case falls into the last category. Everyone already "knows" fanboys are irrational about their preferences, so the poster is acknowledging that before the trolls can harp on about it and trying to move us on to the part about trying to figure out _why_ that is.