
Fanbois treat criticism of favorite brands as threat to self-image - shawndumas
http://arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/08/users-treat-criticism-of-favorite-brands-as-threat-to-self-image.ars
======
ilamont
I always thought this was an interesting example of Apple extremists being
provoked by a hoax:

<http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2004/02/62157>

 _The hoaxer, identified only as "Andy," claimed he received a dual-processor
G5 for Christmas. But preferring a Windows PC, he swapped out the insides of
the $3,000 machine for the guts of a cheapo PC. The post included several
digital photographs to prove the outrageous claim._

It generated insults from all over the world, and even threats of violence.

bediger also mentioned the possible presence of "reverse shills" being used to
pollute the Linux camp. I believe there may be some truth to that -- it's one
way to convince on-the-fence tech execs that Linux/Open Source supporters are
extremists.

I also believe there's a parallel in politics: Many political campaigns, when
they take the fight into online forums, blogs, and newspaper comment threads,
attempt to make the other side seem as offensive and idiotic as possible.
Extremist commenters repel moderates who might otherwise be aligned with the
cause, and/or attract other extremists. I don't have proof of this (almost all
such comments are anonymous) other than the staggering incidence of idiocy I
see on comment threads when politicians are discussed.

~~~
kprobst
"bediger also mentioned the possible presence of "reverse shills" being used
to pollute the Linux camp."

Interestingly I've never seen this proven in any way, although I suppose it's
possible. But extremists in FOSS are widespread enough that I doubt it's some
evil secret plot by Microsoft (or whomever) to make the community look bad.

~~~
sliverstorm
You never know, Stallman could be the greatest reverse-shill ever planted.

------
rkalla
tl;dr: we make snap decisions about people because we have to; the world moves
fast. therefore we want people to make the right snap decision about us, so we
brand ourselves with bits and pieces of all the brands out there that we think
convey _us_ to the outside world. the line between brand and "me" get very
blurry. when a person says "I hate brand X", because of that blurry line, they
are saying/you are hearing: "I hate X% of you!"

\---------------------------------

We have all seen this online at some point or another... Apple/Windows,
iPhone/Android, Xbox/PS3, Vegetarian/Paleo, etc. and unfortunately I imagine a
good number of us have experienced this in-person as well.

Bumping heads with someone fully ingrained in their brands is frustrating like
no other, but why is it so pervasive? What is lacking in a person's life such
that they carry around the brand of their favorite product with more pride
then their own self-worth/intelligence/curiosity/love-of-life?

It seems like a global identity crisis.

Advertising tells us we HAVE to be different, we HAVE to be unique. God forbid
I be exactly like my neighbor and we understand each other with a little bit
of compassion... screw that, he's an idiot, and I am smart.

Then you see people so desperately clawing at uniqueness that things like
branded clothing and devices just do not cut it anymore and you have explosive
growth in body modifications[1]; tattoos to piercings in every other person I
see at a coffee shop or walking down the street anymore.

I don't actually care what people do; if you need to feel different, go for
it. What I do care about is the _obsessive need_ for it in order to live your
life. I feel like that is an artificial requirement that does nothing good for
any of us.

Advertising has convinced us so whole heatedly that unless we are different
(like everyone else) we won't be happy.

So it isn't much of a surprise that I compose myself, like a Frankenstein of
identities, with a dash of iPhone, a sprinkle of back tattoos, a hint of ear-
loop piercings, a flick of BMW and a smattering of D&C shoes to properly and
completely define myself to the world. A visual finger print of "who I am".

All these brands are a giant grab-bag of fractions of identities that
advertisers have attached to each one that we reach into and stick to
ourselves in order to convey an ideal to the world.

I am relaxed, but smart, aware of my self-image, like nice things and care
about the earth. Ok, so I have an iPhone 5, I wear trendy silicon valley swag,
drive a BMW 5-series and shop at Whole Foods with my flip flops on.

It seems to me that this is the fallout from two things:

    
    
      1. Advertisers dividing and conquering us for a century.
      2. Pace of life being magnitudes times faster now.
    

I don't have time to get to know you anymore, so I make a snap decision on who
you are, what you believe in and how you live by looking at how you label
yourself.

Nice suit, nice car, big house, practice law and live in Dallas? Then I guess
you are a Republican, don't care about the earth, hate social programs and
only care about yourself and your family.

See what conclusions I jumped to?

Now when I see you cutting your hedge and getting clippings on my lawn, I
already hate you and decided you only care about yourself, so my opening
sentence to you is "Hey Jerkface, come rake this up!"

Nevermind the fact that even if I lived next to you for 10 years, I might
never get to know you anyway.

I don't know that any of this is "wrong" or "bad", it just is what it is. We
jump to snap decisions because we don't have the time NOT to. Because we jump
to snap decisions we want to make sure we brand ourselves in the proper way to
convey the RIGHT snap decision.

So the line between "me" and "my brands" are blurring really badly. If I
identify myself with the brands I chose, to some extent those brands ARE me.

If you hate those brands, then you hate me... and I hate you.

Which is unfortunate.

[1]
[http://images.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&sourc...](http://images.google.com/search?tbm=isch&hl=en&source=hp&biw=1262&bih=1390&q=body+modification&gbv=2&oq=body+modification&aq=f&aqi=g10&aql=&gs_sm=e&gs_upl=212l2663l0l2838l22l17l1l7l7l0l205l1220l2.6.1l9l0)

~~~
caf
This doesn't really explain why some of the brands with the most ardent
fanboys are those that _don't_ have a big presence marketing directly to
consumers: say, Boeing vs. Airbus, or AMD vs. Intel. For the great majority
who aren't particularly familiar with those industries, which brand someone
identifies with doesn't tell us _anything_ \- what does it mean to be an
Airbus fanboy rather than Boeing? Not being an aviation geek myself, I really
don't know!

------
podperson
It seems to me that passions flare when people are forced to make an
expensive, difficult to reverse choice based on insufficient evidence between
similar but highly incompatible products. E.g. which car is going to be
better? I don't know, there's really no way to find out (history is at best a
guide), so I do "research" and make a choice and now I am stuck with it. I'd
like to believe I made a good choice, so any evidence that I clearly made a
bad choice is hurtful.

Brands simply become shorthand for these choices.

You don't see Toshiba vs. Panasonic vs. Lenovo laptop wars because the choice
there is not so hard to reverse and the deciding factors were fairly clear.
But you do see it in Canon vs. Nikon DSLRs (because lens incompatibility
forces you to double down on your choice).

Probably the worst example of this kind of thing is not Apple vs. (whoever)
but religion.

~~~
hugh3
* It seems to me that passions flare when people are forced to make an expensive, difficult to reverse choice based on insufficient evidence between similar but highly incompatible products. E.g. which car is going to be better? I don't know, there's really no way to find out (history is at best a guide), so I do "research" and make a choice and now I am stuck with it. I'd like to believe I made a good choice, so any evidence that I clearly made a bad choice is hurtful*

This doesn't explain why the vast majority of the population seems to be
perfectly able to buy a car and _not_ become fanboys, whereas a small, largely
very young, overwhelmingly male, sector of the population feel compelled to
defend _far_ more minor purchasing decisions.

Example: I drive a Ford. For some folks, driving a Ford puts you on one side
of some great battle, whether it be Ford vs GM or Domestic vs Imported. For
me, it's just a goddamn car, and my next car will probably be something
entirely different. I don't feel compelled to defend the decision I made in
buying that car, nor to argue that it's "better" than any other car, because
(a) there's a lot of cars out there, each with its own advantages and
disadvantages and (b) life is too short.

~~~
podperson
You're overly focused on iPhone vs. Android without considering all the other
kinds of fanboism out there that simply go under other labels, whether it's
patriotism, religion, favorite TV show, or brand of camera.

Is it all teenage boys? Well, teenage boys are a lot more passionate and vocal
about whatever it is they're interested in than other demographics, but you
don't have to look hard to find middle-aged Nikon fanatics, or Protestant nut
jobs.

~~~
hugh3
I don't think I actually mentioned iPhone or Android in my comment -- did you
mean to reply to someone else?

However, I think you're excessively conflating different types of fanaticism
here. Fanaticism about personal electronics, or TV shows, or brands of car, or
brands of camera, is silly because these things _don't fucking matter_.
Religious fanaticism, on the other hand, is fanaticism about something that
_is_ important. I myself don't believe any religion is likely to be true, but
if I _did_ , then this would be a sensible thing to get all worked up about.

The stakes of choosing the wrong camera are that you might wind up taking
slightly worse pictures under certain circumstances. The stakes of choosing
the wrong religion are (according to the tenets of those religions) that
you'll get rewarded _or_ punished for all eternity.

Likewise, patriotism can often be silly but at least it's about something
important. If my favourite TV show ceased to exist it would be a minor bummer,
whereas if my favourite country ceased to exist then I'd have some serious
problems.

------
bediger
There's also a persistent rumor/concept among Linux aficionados that some or
all of the worst profanity spouting, knuckle-dragging, "Sodomize Microsoft!"
fanbois are actually paid-for "reverse shills". That is, some vague conspiracy
finances trolls to make the rest of Linux advocates look stupid. This rumor
seems like an example of "Poe's Law" (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poes_law>)
in action.

~~~
rbanffy
> There's also a persistent rumor/concept among Linux aficionados

Never heard such thing and people here can tell you I am a very vocal Linux
aficionado.

But there are companies who specialize in interfering with forums to adjust
brand-awareness for their clients.

~~~
shabble
I'm reminded of the recent HBGary hack/infodump which contained a lot of
material about creating software to ease/simplify sockpuppeting and plausible
background generation for the US government.

One article: [https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/12250-HBGary-
Federal-...](https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/12250-HBGary-Federal-
Document-on-Manipulating-Social-Media.html)

Dozens of others, including probably the leaked docs themselves via Google.

------
molecule
Self-image, affiliation? Branding, indeed:
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Livestock_branding>

------
siglesias
I don't think this is such a bad finding.

Let's look at this from the perspective of the "brand." I make apps. What gets
me _pumped_ more than anything is an email in the morning from a customer who
says they really enjoy my app and use it every day. Strong customer feedback
and loyalty are what drive me to make better products.

If we were to take the _opposite_ case, that customers saw brands as
interchangeable cogs, then the only incentives out there for the people making
products would be money, and that _isn't_ what motivates creative people on a
deep level.

A base of highly loyal customers creates, if you will, a very, very high bar
of "social pressure" that makes it harder for managers to make decisions that
screw them over.

------
gruseom
Humans treat criticism of favorite anything as threat to self-image.

~~~
hugh3
Not necessarily. Not all humans. Perhaps insecure humans, or humans without
enough going on in their lives. For instance, if I tell you my favourite
breakfast cereal is Raisin Bran, and you tell me that Raisin Bran suxx0rs and
Rice Krispies rulez then I'm not really gonna take that as a big threat to my
self-image -- I'll just think that you're a weirdo for having such strongly
expressed preferences on such matters.

And for the vast majority of the population, the question of your favourite
brand of consumer electronics falls into the same category.

~~~
gruseom
Heh. Is the phenomenon absent in those cases, or just weaker?

------
gaoshan
Frothing at the mouth over other people's choice of computer or vehicle or
clothing, excessive "keep off my property" signage, getting mad at being
"looked at"... all signs of the same thing. Lack of self-image.

------
athst
They use the word "fanbois" to sound pejorative, but isn't this a good thing?
It basically means that people are passionate about your company and its
products. It means you're relevant. It has always been like that with
rivalries like Mac vs. PC, Nintendo vs. Sega, and now Android vs. iPhone/iPad.

~~~
bluekeybox
It's not cool to be passionate. It's always been cool to be intelligent
though.

EDIT:

I did not mean to say that _being_ passionate is bad. I meant to say that in
most social situations, _appearing_ overly passionate is often bad. Right now,
I am struggling to maintain passion for the project I'm working on and I know
that I will fail as soon as I stop being passionate about it -- so I know
there are hard times when passion is necessary. However I think that my point
about appearing "cool" holds -- more people get excited about my projects when
I put up an impression of total control and slight lack of passion rather than
the other way around.

One has to know how to program both oneself and others.

~~~
bgurupra
No great thing was ever accomplished without being passionate.Even the
research field which is all about intellectualism needs you to be passionate
about your ideas and ploughing away at them even though they are just untested
hypotheses till it gets proved

~~~
bluekeybox
Problem is, one needs to be passionate about the _right_ things from the very
beginning -- and, paradoxically, the only way to decide objectively which
things are worth being passionate about is to start off being dispassionate
about them.

~~~
timwiseman
But you do not need to be passionate about the right things from the
beginning. For one thing, it is possible to move into a field late in life and
make enormous advances. Fermat provided a brilliant example of this.

Of course, you could say Fermat was an outlier, but I suspect that anyone who
is truly, deeply passionate about something is an outlier already. Most people
go through their lives with little passion at all.

~~~
bluekeybox
I was passionate about zoology during some of the formative years of my life.

I realized later that unless I become the next Darwin, I will never be happy
with my career choice because I will be doomed to working for a large part of
my life for people less intelligent than myself and that I will not grow as a
person because of that.

Passion is good unless we lose control of it.

------
krluna22785
Thanks for this. It makes a lot of sense. I even take it personally when a
brand I love holds an event or a specific sale that is accessible to everyone,
even people who are not in love with the brand as much as I am.

~~~
hugh3
... don't take this the wrong way, but you really need to change your
relationship with life in general.

------
devindotcom
Yep. I compared it to a redirection of angst:
[http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/21/fanboyism-when-
expression-m...](http://techcrunch.com/2010/08/21/fanboyism-when-expression-
meets-desperation/)

------
njharman
I thought that was part of the definition of a fanboy, no?

Irrational "love" of foo, "hatred" of those that disagree due to psychological
issues such as cognitive dissonance.

------
wtracy
Next question: What can brand owners do to cultivate (or discourage!) this
behavior?

------
araneae
To be fair, the Toyota thing was a grand experiment in human psychology as
well.

