Peanut Butter Fanboy

Last time, I promised to make some nerds angry. Since doing so is about as easy as shooting fish in a barrel with a bazooka the same size as the barrel itself, here I am making good on my word!

Speaking of words, one in particular is going to be the basis for this week's little discussion. The word "fanboy": it gets tossed around quite a lot, doesn't it? But can anyone out there claim to really, truly know exactly what it means? I believe I do, and I'll try to define it in the easiest way possible so that from now on you will know a fanboy the moment you see one.

First things first: you can be a fangirl, too. This isn't an exclusive club like the Shriners we're talking about here. fans can be any gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. And for the record, you can also be a fanboy of a gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. It's funny that way.

So here's my ultimate definition of the term: being a fanboy is simply a indication that you are heavily invested in a certain thing to the point where it stops being casual interest and becomes nerd-like obsession. Someone who reads/analyzes a lot of comics and spends thousands of dollars a month on collecting and organizing them is a comic book fanboy. Someone who knows every line of dialogue in all six Star Wars films and owns every action figure of even the most obscure character from the movies or novels is a Star Wars fanboy. Someone who walks around wearing their favourite players' hockey jersey, memorizes goalkeeping stats, and goes to a bar every other night to watch the game with their beer buddies is a hockey fanboy (Yes, sports fans, stop kidding yourselves; you're all nerds too. You just prefer balls to lightsabers. Take from that what you will).

The thing that separates fanboys from just plain fans, though, is bit more complicated: it mostly involves elitism, aggression, and finding common enemies. Here's a helpful example to illustrate.

I really, really, really like Kraft smooth peanut butter. I like it to the point where I am a Kraft smooth peanut butter fanboy. I eat Kraft smooth peanut butter at least three times a day. I've bought it so many times that I know how many pieces of peanut butter toast I can get out of one jar. I can recite from memory every single one of the ingredients, as well as the recipes that they usually have on the backs of the labels. I have posters of Kraft smooth peanut butter hanging in my bedroom. I know the names of all the people who had a hand in inventing it, in what year they did so, and in which part of the world it happened. If you were to try to engage me in a conversation about a totally unrelated issue, like the BP oil spill or Obama's health care plan, I would somehow find a way to steer the conversation back into the waters of Kraft smooth peanut butter, to the point where you will be so annoyed with my obsession that you'll eventually just stop talking to me.

Let's bring a second person into the mix now. We'll call her Veronica. Veronica is a fangirl as well, except her obsession revolves around Kraft crunchy peanut butter. When Veronica and I are together, the two of us will inevitably start to bicker about our interests. In most cases, though, neither of us will harbor any malice towards the other; I respect Veronica's interest in a Kraft peanut butter product, and vice versa. Our arguments don't involve bashing one another, but rather boasting why we think our respective peanut butters are superior. Veronica thinks having peanut shells in every bite is fantastic. I think peanut butter should flow like liquid across the top of my toast.

Now, here comes a third person: Stuart. Stuart is a peanut butter fanboy. But Stuart doesn't like Kraft peanut butter. Stuart likes Skippy peanut butter.

Instantly, Veronica & I will put aside our small differences and gang-bang the hell out of Stuart's opinions. This time, we're not in it to convince Stuart how great our peanut butter is: we're in it to rag on how shitty his peanut butter is. Instead of using logical defense, Veronica and I resort to mockery and humiliation. For example, while our earlier conversations might have sounded like this: "Smooth is clearly better than crunchy. Having peanut shells in every bite cuts up the roof of my mouth", they now sound like this: "Stuart, you are a facking n00b! Skippy peanut butter is teh gay!" We actually take offense that Stuart has the gall to even consider any other peanut butter brand.

Oh, and jam? Don't even get us STARTED on jam.

Last time, I promised to make some nerds angry. Since doing so is about as easy as shooting fish in a barrel with a bazooka the same size as the barrel itself, here I am making good on my word!

Speaking of words, one in particular is going to be the basis for this week's little discussion. The word "fanboy": it gets tossed around quite a lot, doesn't it? But can anyone out there claim to really, truly know exactly what it means? I believe I do, and I'll try to define it in the easiest way possible so that from now on you will know a fanboy the moment you see one.

First things first: you can be a fangirl, too. This isn't an exclusive club like the Shriners we're talking about here. fans can be any gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. And for the record, you can also be a fanboy of a gender, race, religion, or sexual orientation. It's funny that way.

So here's my ultimate definition of the term: being a fanboy is simply a indication that you are heavily invested in a certain thing to the point where it stops being casual interest and becomes nerd-like obsession. Someone who reads/analyzes a lot of comics and spends thousands of dollars a month on collecting and organizing them is a comic book fanboy. Someone who knows every line of dialogue in all six Star Wars films and owns every action figure of even the most obscure character from the movies or novels is a Star Wars fanboy. Someone who walks around wearing their favourite players' hockey jersey, memorizes goalkeeping stats, and goes to a bar every other night to watch the game with their beer buddies is a hockey fanboy (Yes, sports fans, stop kidding yourselves; you're all nerds too. You just prefer balls to lightsabers. Take from that what you will).

The thing that separates fanboys from just plain fans, though, is bit more complicated: it mostly involves elitism, aggression, and finding common enemies. Here's a helpful example to illustrate.

I really, really, really like Kraft smooth peanut butter. I like it to the point where I am a Kraft smooth peanut butter fanboy. I eat Kraft smooth peanut butter at least three times a day. I've bought it so many times that I know how many pieces of peanut butter toast I can get out of one jar. I can recite from memory every single one of the ingredients, as well as the recipes that they usually have on the backs of the labels. I have posters of Kraft smooth peanut butter hanging in my bedroom. I know the names of all the people who had a hand in inventing it, in what year they did so, and in which part of the world it happened. If you were to try to engage me in a conversation about a totally unrelated issue, like the BP oil spill or Obama's health care plan, I would somehow find a way to steer the conversation back into the waters of Kraft smooth peanut butter, to the point where you will be so annoyed with my obsession that you'll eventually just stop talking to me.

Let's bring a second person into the mix now. We'll call her Veronica. Veronica is a fangirl as well, except her obsession revolves around Kraft crunchy peanut butter. When Veronica and I are together, the two of us will inevitably start to bicker about our interests. In most cases, though, neither of us will harbor any malice towards the other; I respect Veronica's interest in a Kraft peanut butter product, and vice versa. Our arguments don't involve bashing one another, but rather boasting why we think our respective peanut butters are superior. Veronica thinks having peanut shells in every bite is fantastic. I think peanut butter should flow like liquid across the top of my toast.

Now, here comes a third person: Stuart. Stuart is a peanut butter fanboy. But Stuart doesn't like Kraft peanut butter. Stuart likes Skippy peanut butter.

Instantly, Veronica & I will put aside our small differences and gang-bang the hell out of Stuart's opinions. This time, we're not in it to convince Stuart how great our peanut butter is: we're in it to rag on how shitty his peanut butter is. Instead of using logical defense, Veronica and I resort to mockery and humiliation. For example, while our earlier conversations might have sounded like this: "Smooth is clearly better than crunchy. Having peanut shells in every bite cuts up the roof of my mouth", they now sound like this: "Stuart, you are a facking n00b! Skippy peanut butter is teh gay!" We actually take offense that Stuart has the gall to even consider any other peanut butter brand.

Oh, and jam? Don't even get us STARTED on jam.

Why did you post so many of these?

@habster3 said:

Why did you post so many of these?

Long winded troll or elaborate ruse. You decide

A for effort on this one. 5/5

Meh

Veronica sounds a bitch and is also wrong. Chunky is the dark work of UNBELIEVERS who would twist the creamy infallibility of pure peanut butter to their own nefarious ends.

Brands may serve to divide our brethren of the holy Smooth Church, but at the end of the day, we ultimately believe in the same thing: Smooth is salvation.

Death to the nonbelievers.

You be tripping balls!

<---- Batman Fanboy

Hey guys. Here's the reason I went haywire with the posting:

I started this blog months ago on my own blogspot site, and only joined Giant Bomb last week. i want to start uploading my posts to GB as well, so I wanted to post as many as possible so that I can "catch up to myself" in a sense. I'm doing the same thing on Screwattack.com as well. Once I'm all caught up, the posts will come out normally (i.e., once a week). The actual site of the blog (if anyone's interested) is tqmark.blogspot.com

Also, who else here likes peanut butter and Nutella, together, on a spoon? I call it PeaNutella. PeaNutella is the shit.

Hugs,

Glockstar Armani

So you know, you don't have to post your blog to the forums haha- so if these are old and your just getting them around to other sites for whatever reason, no need to put them all on the forum, just leave that little dot blank =)

Peanut butter is pretty awesome. I usually prefer smooth to chunky, but I don't mind a little chunk every now and then.

There have been days where every meal I had was a peanut butter sandwich. Not in a while, but that was how I spent a lot of my summers in high school.

@GlockstarArmani said:

I started this blog months ago on my own blogspot site, and only joined Giant Bomb last week. i want to start uploading my posts to GB as well, so I wanted to post as many as possible so that I can "catch up to myself" in a sense. I'm doing the same thing on Screwattack.com as well. Once I'm all caught up, the posts will come out normally (i.e., once a week). The actual site of the blog (if anyone's interested) is tqmark.blogspot.com

I can see why you'd want to do that, but I believe that would simply make people not give a shit about what you're saying if you're overloading the boards with nonsense. I'm not saying this is because smooth peanut butter is obviously something everyone should get on to (in fact, I would say there should be a poll to really stick the point), but you don't want to alienate people by seeming like a troll trying to flood the forums with whatever.

I'd suggest just posting the blogs as they come out. You've told people what your normal blog site is, so they can go check out that, and then you're done. Plus, less effort for you, as we know everyone in the world wants to be that little bit lazier.

RPGee