Fanboy/fangirl

Fanboy/fangirl

Fanboy is a term used to describe a male who is highly devoted and biased in opinion towards a single subject or hobby within a given field. Fanboy-ism is often prevalent in a field of products, brands or universe of characters where very few competitors (or enemies in fiction, such as comics) exist. An example is the market for CPUs for PCs, where AMD and Intel together hold a market share of 99.6% (as of Q1 2009)[4]. In this market, users of home computers realistically only have a choice between two brands, and hence, a fight over which is better easily ensues. In this field, an "Intel fanboy" prefers CPUs made by Intel, and might aggressively defend their supposed superiority compared to the other brand(s), be skeptical or in denial about negative reviews of the product, and exert a high level of brand loyalty. The same brand war ensues when comparing video card brands Nvidia and ATI, which together dominate the video card market.

The term originated in comic book circles, to describe someone who was socially insecure and used comics as a shield from interaction, hence the disparaging connotations.[citation needed] Fanboys are often experts on minor details regarding their hobbies, such as continuity in fictional universes, and they take these details extremely seriously. The term has also been applied to criticize perceived fan elitism[citation needed]. The term itself is often used in a derogatory manner by less serious fans of the same material. Nevertheless, self-labeling usages of the term have been noted; in the songs of the fannish parody musician Luke Ski, many characters proudly consider themselves fanboys.

The term is usually used by and applied to people in their teens or 20s; an age group which is typically found pursuing geeky hobbies obsessively. Within this group, common objects of deference for fanboys are TV shows, movies, anime, cars, video game consoles, video games, music, operating systems, trains, home computers (in earlier decades), MMORPGs, ISPs, software and computer hardware companies.

The term fangirl can be used to describe a female member of a fandom community (counterpart to the masculine "fanboy"). Fangirls may be more devoted to emotional and romantic aspects of their fandom, especially (relation-)shipping. However, it is commonly used in a derogatory sense to describe a girl's obsession with something, most commonly a male teen idol or an aspect of Japanese pop culture. Fangirl behavior can vary in intensity. On one end of the scale are those that, while harboring a crush on a particular actor or character, are perfectly capable of understanding that the fulfilment of the crush is never going to happen. On the other end are the girls who are said to be obsessive in their claims on a fictional character, even fighting with other fangirls over who 'owns' the character in question. Fangirl behavior can fall anywhere in this spectrum, but the closer someone is believed to be towards the obsessive end, the more derogatory the use of the term 'fangirl' to describe them is perceived to be. Fangirls of all persuasions are believed to be the largest contributors to fanfiction websites, sometimes disregarding the canon storyline of their fandom or altering it to fit either their own favored romantic pairings; or themselves into the continuity (termed self-insertions or Mary Sues).[citation needed]







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