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Jesus Garcia
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 10 April 2007
Location: Canada
Posts: 2414
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| Posted: 18 March 2015 at 12:07pm | IP Logged | 1
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I still experience a thrill every time I trade posts with JB and wouldn't care if someone would call me out as a fanboy as I am a fan and a boy.
In fact, I wish I would have had a similar opportunity to chat with Asimov, Kirby, or Roddenberry. And damn if I waited too long with Nimoy. He sounds like he would have given me some response.
Anyway, this "fanboy" label is just another in a long line of labels people level at one another. Way past the time to start ignoring -- or banning in some fashion -- these agitators. They discredit themselves from engaging any serious discussion the moment they give in to their labeling reflex.
It's like how being called a geek or a nerd used to be a bad thing -- and is now the new cool.
Anyway, JB, thank you very much for the many years of enjoyment you have brought to my life and thanks again for your exchanges with this fan.
May you have health, long life, and happyness.
Edited by Jesus Garcia on 18 March 2015 at 12:21pm
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Michael Casselman
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 14 January 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 1246
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| Posted: 18 March 2015 at 12:37pm | IP Logged | 2
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'Fanboy' is just a dumb sounding, awkward word to begin with. It's one thing to write it out, but I can't imagine, even discussing something with the nerdiest of nerds, having to utter the word out loud, or concieve of a way of dropping it into my vernacular as if I wasn't making an overt attempt at trying to be 'hip' or being the type of person who has to find a contrived way of injecting their 'newly learned Word of the Day' into daily conversation. It's an ugly word for a subset of people already in a niche mindset as part of a specialist hobby culture to begin with.
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Steve De Young
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 01 April 2008
Location: United States
Posts: 3507
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| Posted: 18 March 2015 at 2:44pm | IP Logged | 3
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So, a question. If we "embrace" and "own" "fanboy" as a term to describe all*, what term IS to be used to describe those who are over-the-top, out at the fringe, and an embarrassment to the rest?
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I think feeling the need to separate ourselves from part of our community is actually a mark that we're ashamed of something. As my fellow Steve (Robinson) pointed out in terms of having two words to refer to African Americans, it reflects a sort of self-hating.
We're saying to the larger community, "All those things you think about us, the things you laugh at, the stereotypes, those are true about some (most?) of us, but not me, I'm one of the good ones!"
I'll just speak for myself, I'm past that. Feel free to lump me in with the fat guy in the home-made Deadpool outfit, the girl painted green in the TOS mini-dress, and the pimple-faced kid arguing with his friend about which edition of D&D is better for using as a rule system for a homebrew Firefly campaign. I may not be into exactly what they're into in the exact way they're into it, but they're my people, and none of us have anything to be ashamed of.
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133324
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| Posted: 18 March 2015 at 8:13pm | IP Logged | 4
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I think feeling the need to separate ourselves from part of our community is actually a mark that we're ashamed of something. As my fellow Steve (Robinson) pointed out in terms of having two words to refer to African Americans, it reflects a sort of self-hating.••• I don't think that's what Stephen meant. To even hint that "fanboy" has any equivalency to "nigger" is to reveal an appalling ignorance of history.
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Peter Martin
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 17 March 2008
Location: Canada
Posts: 15953
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| Posted: 18 March 2015 at 9:30pm | IP Logged | 5
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Fanboy isn't a term I've ever spoken out loud or had spoken out loud to me, but these terms are all very relative. Actually, the same applies for nerd or geek, although all three terms were not common in the UK when I was growing up.
Knowing the difference between red kryptonite and green kryptonite has led to some mocking in the past ("which kryptonite gets you a life?" I was once asked), but I have never felt like a nerd or a geek for liking Star Trek, Batman, Spider-Man, etc. Everyone has been slow to catch up, but they've pretty much got there eventually :)
Fanboy, I'd say, is ultimately not a very helpful term. And certainly not a positive one. I would never use it myself. I like the colour blue. I like the music of Beethoven. Do I need terms to pigeon-hole myself for these preferences? Or can i just have a normal conversation with someone and if we spend sufficient time together they can learn what i like and don't like. And if we don't, then it won't matter, will it?
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133324
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| Posted: 19 March 2015 at 5:28am | IP Logged | 6
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Think of it this way: can you imagine all football fans contentedly referring to themselves as "football hooligans"?
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Michael Penn
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 12 April 2006
Location: United States
Posts: 12715
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| Posted: 19 March 2015 at 5:41am | IP Logged | 7
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I stopped reading comicbooks around 1981. I'd never up to that point heard of the word "fanboy." When did this coinage become typical currency? I dropped comicbooks as a young teen, so I wouldn't have been aware if grown men already by the very early 80s had been referring to themselves as "fanboys." If I as a kid had known about that term and that it would be applied to me, I most likely would have bolted the hobby earlier.
Edited by Michael Penn on 19 March 2015 at 5:41am
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John Byrne
Grumpy Old Guy
Joined: 11 May 2005
Posts: 133324
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| Posted: 19 March 2015 at 5:55am | IP Logged | 8
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I stopped reading comicbooks around 1981. I'd never up to that point heard of the word "fanboy." When did this coinage become typical currency?•• The earliest reference (in its modern context) I know of is in the collection of Jim Engle and Chuck Fiala's FANDOM CONFIDENTIAL strips that was published in the early 80s. There it was used as a play on "Gayboys in Bondage," a gag title used on an episode of MONTY PYTHON that had been recently broadcast in the Chicago area. Whether Jim and Chuck actually coined the term, or just the play on words, I do not know.
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Brian J Nelson
Byrne Robotics Member
Joined: 26 August 2014
Location: United States
Posts: 365
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| Posted: 19 March 2015 at 8:16am | IP Logged | 9
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I found a couple of interesting articles that take the origin of the term back to the early 70s. Here is one indicating a timeline of sorts.
http://gawker.com/5542074/the-origin-of-fanboy
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