| Ka-pi96 said: Hmmm, you make some good points. But I can't agree. Some fanbases are better than others, and some are worse than others... |
I think they all have the same kind of negative potential, honestly, it's just that direct factors play a big role in how fanboys behave online.
For instance, in my experience, the worst fanboys I've encountered, in chronological order, were:
Original Xbox - This was when the internet was starting to get hype and some of the Xbox guys were people who typed like this--"l0l Xb0x pWnz j00 l0l H4L0 gr4phx r teh sHiZZZZ". I was on AOL back then and those guys were so bloody annoying. It was like the 'l33t' console option back then, kind of a PC jr. thing.
Early PS3 appologists - Some of these guys would get mad and pure RANT if you said, "no way, that's too expensive". Nothing like someone saying, "IT'S WORTH IT DUMBASS!!!!," to bring things to annoying levels.
The Wii inferiority complex people - I didn't get a new console at the start of last gen. I was playing exclusively on PC and quite content with games like WoW and Ragnarok Online. I read what other people were saying online about the consoles but I wasn't really paying attention. After I quit WoW, though, I remember watching E3 and catching the fever. I remember saying in one gaming chat-room that I hadn't seen much from the Wii that interested me. Oh dear god, it was like I had pushed the RAGE button. LISTS SPROUTED OUT OF NOWHERE. I had stumbled into a minefield where apparantly many, many battles had already been fought. I'm also going to hook Nintendo third-party conspiracy nuts to this, since this is where it started.
So I think context has a lot to do with making fanboys behave really badly. Being forced into a defensive position, especially, appears to bring out the worst.
