Are you a sufferer of Fanboy Psychosis?
This crippling syndrome afflicts geeks from all demographics pasttimes are deeply rooted in the consumption of digital pop-culture through the mediums of cinema, graphic novels, television serials, or video games. Fanboy Psychosis is a progressive sickness that erodes the Fanboy’s ability to derive entertainment from the original source of his Fandome. After years of prolonged and immersive exposure to the worlds that exist only in the annals of Fantasy or Science Fiction (eg: Tattooine, Delta Halo, Middle-Earth), the Fanboy begins to assign a misplaced sense of ownership (residence, even) to the ficticious realm of his choosing.
Thus, a sufferer of Fanboy Psychosis exists more in the ficticious realm than he does in reality.
Once the seed of this psychosis takes root, the suffering Fanboy can no longer obtain pleasure from the ficticious franchise to which he has devoted himself. He ceases to be a fan, and becomes an overly analytical naysayer. Suspension of one’s disbelief dies at the hands of unforgiving obsession. This phenomenon is dependent on the fact that the object of the Fanboy’s imagination has (in metaphor to Pinnochio) become real – as real a place as Detroit or the DMV.
The Creator of the ficticious realm is therefore elevated to the level of God. Unfortunately, as no mortal man can live up to this divine designation; the writer, author, filmmaker, or programmer is saddled with a form of unwanted Hubris imposed on them by the Fanboy. Concurrently, any efforts on the part of The Creator to further the telling of their story will only diverge from the true path that the Fanboy had imagined for his fantasy world. It is at this moment that Fanboy Psychosis manifests itself in the form of rage. It is at this moment that the Creator is accused of “selling out”, or in the most extreme of circumstances, of “raping one’s childhood.”
Nothing, after all, can be as real as the dreams of a Fanboy.
This argument is not to say that anyone who offers a bad review for a piece of entertainment suffers from Fanboy Psychosis. Rather, this syndrome belongs to the Fanboy who has lost his ability to be entertained, as the desire for amusement is replaced with an omniscient (though highly delusional) persepctive for how the story in question should have been told.
Do you (or does someone you know) suffer from Fanboy Psychosis? To find out, take this simple quiz…
1. Do you think the script writing of the Original Star Wars Trilogy is far and away better than that of the Prequel Trilogy?
2. Did you think Halo2 sucked because human capital ships were capable of atmospheric flight*? *(a fact CLEARLY refuted in the fan fiction novels)
3. Have you ever harrassed the helpful lady at the Viacom superstore because the NCC Excelsior on display exhibited the wrong secondary hull?
4. Is JarJar Binks more a war criminal than Wicket the Ewok?
5. Have you ever decided that a quality franchise had become lame simply because you were into it ‘before it was cool’?
6. Do you visit www.aintitcoolnews.com more than once a month to post opinions (“first!”) about how much upcomming movies are destined to suck?
7. Did the developers at Bungie Studios “n00bify” your favorite game when they mothballed a pistol that could lob a slug halfway around the world?
8. Have you ever panned a cinematic adaptation of literature because it failed to capture the personal psychological context that you invented for yourself as you were reading the book?
9. Who is a better actor? Mark Hammil or Hayden Chistiansen? (this is a bonus trick question)
10. Have you ever worn your ‘Federation of Planets’ uniform to jury duty?
11. Did Viggo Mortenson botch the elvish dialect in ‘Fellowship of the Ring’?
Case In Point: I was informed by one visitor that ‘Elvish’ is to be capitalized [post deleted]
12. Have you ever terminated a romantic entanglement due to her inability to discern a Romulon from a Vulcan?
13. Do you have an opinion as to who would win a tactical engagement between the Galactic Empire and the Federation of Planets?
If you answered more than three of those quesitons “Yes!”, you are clearly in the throes of Fanboy Psychosis.
Case studies and analysis provided by Dr. Xerxes Mulcahy, Criminal Psychologist and Freelance Combat Livery.
Couldn’t have said it better myself.
Is there a cure for this disease that plagues me?
Burn in Hell Heretic!
Ah, a very intellectual look at a very funny disease.
“Have you ever panned a cinematic adaptation of literature because it failed to capture the personal psychological context that you invented for yourself as you were reading the book?”
While I thought the rest of your post was hilarious (and almost caught myself agreeing with a few), I have to take umbrage with this one. I don’t think someone who dislikes a modern adaptation of romeo and juliet, for example, could be said to be suffering from Shakespearean fanboy psychosis. No cinematic adaptation is going to match a particular person’s visualization of a literary work, but there ARE degrees of variance with respect to how the adaptation adhered to the story.
“Degrees of variance?”
I do believe we have a thinking man on our hands!
Doc Platinum is clean of Fanboy Psychosis. Umbrage or not, his open mindedness illustrates my point.
clearly i do not suffer from this disease. i am, however, a bit harsh when my heroes shame themselves. after all…
francis ford coppola directed “Jack”
al pacino appears in “Gigli”
deniro donned the disapointing “Adventures of Rocky and Bullwinkle”
they all do it. and it makes me weep. but, hey, money is money, right?
btw, when did Dr. M trade 7.62mm for pulling G’s? he is one well-rounded MF.
I was into Psychosis when it wasn’t even cool…way before Silence of the Lambs and just a little before McCoy took that overdose of cordrazine…and you just aren’t describing it right!
Dude, you aren’t even capturing the idea properly!
If I had written the article, it would have focused on the high intellect of the fanboy and his, dare I say, elite perception of his inner reality. You see, once I have allowed a pop media creator’s material access to my internal reality…well…I’ve let them INSIDE ME. Once you’ve been INSIDE ME…you have obligations. I won’t be ignored, Dan..I mean Doc.
I like the original better.
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DATE: 6/04/2005 12:50:25 AM
Whew! I only answered 2 in the affirmative.
Using the word affirmative…I’m leaning toward the psychosis, aren’t I?
Dear God….
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DATE: 6/01/2005 08:42:39 AM
But Mark Hamill IS a better actor than Hayden Christensen. His work on Batman: TAS is amazing. And the guy playing Wookie #3 is a better actor as Hayden “I don’t like sand.” Christensen.
...guilty as charged.
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DATE: 6/01/2005 06:53:48 AM
Degree of Variance?
Doc, do even know wtf you’re talking about? The very fact that someone does take ‘umbrage’ with a given interpretation of anything indicates fanboy psychosis. Anytime a fan of anything takes ownership rights of a given work (not of their own making) and criticizes interpretations of it on the basis that they are a ‘fan’ and ‘know’ – you’ve got fanboy psychosis. Especially with fans of Shakespeare! I’ve worked with Shakespeare purists that refuse to cut one singe word from a production. Not ONE and I’m talking Winters Tale here. (I doubt that will mean anything to you). Have you ever seen Shakespeare? (And I’m NOT talking about DiCrapio and Co.).
But it this sentence of yours that leaves me slackjawed:
‘but there ARE degrees of variance with respect to how the adaptation adhered to the story.’
WTF does that even mean? I mean, jesus – what kind of psychobabble are you trying to push here? What I think you mean is: is the adaptation truthful to the original. Does it do it justice? Is it worth watching or should just go and read the focking book. I find that the book is almost always better than the movie (or mini-series), because a book can always cover a lot more psychological group than any other medium.
So what IS you point? After examining your post I’ve come to the conclusion that if it wasn’t for that horse, you wouldn’t have spent that year in college.
Fuck
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DATE: 5/31/2005 04:00:58 PM
Very cleverly put and true.
I liked how you defined fanboy psychosis like a research paper in psychology or like the DSM.