One of the best things about my role at Engadget HD is that I get to write about whatever I want. Sure sometimes Paul or Evan ask me to hit a story, but for the most part I get to write what I want. More often than not, I write Blu-ray news that I am excited about, and because of this I have been given the name “Ben ‘Blu-ray’ Drawbaugh” by some of the commenters. As a blogger the first thing I had to get used too was ridicule, some call you an idiot, or a fanboy, or even a corporate shill, but yesterday when I wrote my first post that some felt was an attack on the PS3, I learned a whole new wrath; the wrath of the PS3 fanboy. All I have to say is WOW, those HD DVD fanboys aren’t anything compared to the blind dedication that these guys have. The funny part is that I really couldn’t care less about the PS3, but I do think it is interesting that the PS3 can’t handle bit-stream audio output properly and it was worth a mention on Engadget HD.
One problem with having a Blu Ray player and a game console in one is that you’ll inevitably attract more than a few rabid fanboys to your format just because they also happen to be rabid fanboys of the console.
They’ll bite the hand that feeds em in an instant if they feel threatened. Somebody should seriously consider doing a psychological, social study on fanboys…particularly of the video game kind (ps3, xbox 360, nintendo). It would be interesting.
Ben,
PS3 fanboys are extremely aggressive as I found out. On youtube a debate was started, by me actually, whether the PS3 was in fact worth $600, and if blu ray was a necessity for gaming. I posted some interesting points and within a few days I started getting nasty, and I mean nasty emails from two PS3 fans. One of them whose name is killzonewarrior even said that he’d kill me if he could. Kill me! He actually said “If I knew who you were u would be f***ing dead” Over a negative opinion over a gaming console, is that shocking? The relentless harassment caused me to close my account on youtube. I would receive about 5 – 10 emails and replies an hour, and what surprised me is that it didn’t stop. You would think there would be a pause in between the hate mail and bashing posts for sleep or work, but no. For nearly 2 weeks and for about 20 + hours a day I was bombarded with hate mail and flame posts from two PS3 fans.
I’m a very opinionated guy and I like to debate a lot of issues on blogs ect. This was the first time I’ve ever encountered anything like this. I know I’m not innocent but I think I reacted how most would to this kind of bashing. The best thing to do is ignore these people, don’t bait them or even try to reason with them. You can’t talk reason to fanboy, they are very fanatical, if you’re not with them you’re against them.
Here’s a link to the blog postings if you want to read,
Now from reading those posts you would think those guys are little kids, but their profiles say that they’re in their 20’s. I can’t see how an adult could behave like that.
Dmirty,
I agree with you. There should be a study on the psychological behavior of fanboys. In my opinion, I think fanboyism is a serious mental illness. Fanboys seem to be very emotionally disturbed, lacking something in their lives that causes them to attach themselves to a particular thing. Fanboys also exhibit an unhealthy amount of antisocial behavior, I asked one of these fanboys if he deals with everyday issues with the same hostility he was showing me, the response I got was “Go f**k your mom” I tried to have an honest to goodness debate with these guys, yes I insulted them, baited them for a reaction. I was curious to see how far this would go, would they give in? No. After two weeks, as I started to appear not to care they become more aggressive, so I cancelled my account. An interesting thing I noticed, as you try to point out facts to a fanboy they become very agitated, more aggressive, with what would seem to be a very violent demeanor. They go on the attack as if your views are a personal attack on them or threaten their way of life. They seem to have a genuine hatred of you for having a different view than theirs. Based on the responses I got, I honestly feel if these two knew who I was they would attempt to cause me physical harm.
Anxiety Attacks
PANIC AWAY
[…] and I’m sure Joystiq can tell you some stories about about game console fanboys — the PS3 fanboys have come after me a few times and all I can say is wow. But who’d a thought there were provider […]
Haha, PS3 fanboys are truly scary, I was on youtube on a unreal tournament III vid for the 360. (before i go further) PS3 fanboys surf the web to find anything and everything to attack. Now continuing, I said on this post, Looks like UT3 will be great for the 360 and I dont see the difference in ps3/360/pc versions. Almost directly afterwords I had two messages saying, and i quote “XBL DOESNT HAVE USER CREATED CONTENT, STFU AND GO DIE” from the first tard. The tard#2 came. I was having a little chat with him about the pros/cons after he msg’d me saying basicly what the other guy did. He’d cooled down and I said “They seem the same and it seems like they would both be good games, I mean all ps3 has is Blu-ray over xbox 360” Only moments after that i had hate mail from what i was guessing his friends. then they sent me pic’s of ps3 videos of i think it was msg4 and then told me they “would beat the s**t out of me when thet find me. I said nothing blocked them and called the police non-emergency line. With their threat saved I showed it to the cops. I hope they found them, still no news on it. Anyhow, yes they are agressive and scary. If you get confronted like i did do as i did. Call the cops but DO NOT CALL 911. call the non-emergency line. cause you never know how crazy they are.