Fanbois treat criticism of favorite brands as threat to self-image
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
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.
I should state I'm not trolling, but I realize I'll probably get downvoted to hell for this since there is probably no one else in the US that will stand up and say they have something of a point, and also that free speech includes telling bereaved soldier parents their lost child is burning in hell, even though that is a pretty shocking thing to do and it would make more sense to keep that belief to yourself. But they don't. They advertise their politically incorrect beliefs to the world. Takes a lot of balls and a bit of craziness. I certainly wouldn't do it. It took me 10 years to get to the point where I would dare to post this one note which I'll probably chicken out and delete in a bit.
But what if everyone said what they really thought about things? Probably there would be utter chaos. I was reading today that a majority of britons believe the police should have used live ammunition to massacre the "rioters" (protesters). That opinion I find FAR more psychotic and offensive than what the nuts at Westboro are preaching. I find the advocacy of using live rounds to massacre protesting civilians in the UK to be utterly depraved and insane. That there is a majority that supports this means the world has gone insane and whatever the democratic majority wants or thinks no longer matters because they are as evil and crazy as the lunatics in Germany that elected the Fuhrer and then encouraged him to get rid of undesirables. It wasn't just the Fuhrer's plan all by himself, it was what the evil people wanted. That level of public evil and madness is what I see in Europe and the US today in the general public. A bunch of crazy dangerous people. God hates them? I sure hope so.
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.
"I hope your PC blows up and leaves your miserable face disfigured forever," read one. "You will surely burn in hell for an eternity for this one."
I seem to recall reading something a while back that suggested the reverse is often true - that moderates will back the extremists for "fighting the good fight".
Even the moderates will tend to have some topics that they strongly support/criticise, and applaud that someone is doing it, especially in the case where the opinion is a minority view. The argument also suggested that extremists tend to generate the most media coverage of a topic - A terrorist bombing is going to generate a huge amount of front-page news compared to, say, some reasonable people meeting and making reasonable compromises. That will then raise awareness of the topic &c. Granted, the publicity will be overwhelming negative, but some people still subscribe to the "any publicity is good" theory.
I can't seem to find the original reference, but I'll edit it in or post a reply if I do find it.
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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.
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.
If one is making a decision that might affect their life/ livelihood directly, sure, it is prudent to not hand over trust to an entity with whom you are unfamiliar. Other than that, I don't judge my neighbors by their brand choice.
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.
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.
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.
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.
http://it.slashdot.org/story/07/07/19/1231216/Mac-Worm-Autho...
MS could get into a lot of legal trouble if they're caught faking death threats against Mac researchers. There are people who actually believe this?
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.
One article: https://www.infosecisland.com/blogview/12250-HBGary-Federal-...
Dozens of others, including probably the leaked docs themselves via Google.
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.
And for the vast majority of the population, the question of your favourite brand of consumer electronics falls into the same category.
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.
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.
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.
Being passionate about a brand though is probably less of a good thing for you personally.
It also means you are attracting nutjobs.
Harley Davidson certainly recognizes that.
Comic books are the first example that springs to mind, but I guess Harley Davidson might be another good one.
For example, see HN comments on news/opinion involving patents, Google, Android and Apple. They devolve in flamefests because people think that their particular company is being wronged, regardless of their original stance on patents etc. before such news involving their companies came out.
Asymco's analysis always seems to make errors that favor Apple, like leaving out HTC from stats on how profitable Android OEMs are. Or something like this http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2887430
Same with Gruber with his extreme pro-Apple spin on everything. Or Marco's 'analysis' http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2878329
It's very telling how some geeks find Gruber, Asymco, Marco etc. very insightful, whereas others find them inane and biased to a fault. No wonder the discussion runs into a flamefest with very harsh moderation.
Not singling out Apple here, there are examples where criticizing Google will get you automatically downvoted here on HN.
Some part of the moderation seems to be on 'party lines'. Criticize Apple or Google, or support MS and face downvotes or no votes. Criticize MS, get a boatload of karma. All this regardless of the actual facts on hand.
As you say, all this may be good for companies, especially ones that carefully cultivate their brand image to use such effects positively, but this is not really beneficial to honest discussion, information or analysis. It turns the conversation into Fox News vs. MSNBC. with people unable to admit their favorite company can do something wrong once in a while, resulting in people mudslinging the competition instead.
Also, see Roughly Drafted and Boycott Novell(now techrights.org).
Just because many sources these days are very positive on Apple and its products, I don't think you can necessarily say that they are Apple-biased. The fact is that Apple is killing all of their competitors right now on almost every measure - product design, profit, etc. Insisting on more "even" coverage of their competitors just isn't warranted because in most cases the competing products don't deserve that much attention or consideration.
Gruber, Asymco, and Marco tend to be very positive on Apple, but when the company screws up, they'll be as harsh as anyone else. For a recent example, look at their coverage of the App Store's change in-app purchase and subscription policies .
To paraphrase Steven Colbert, sometimes reality has an Apple bias.
Look at programming languages. There are lot of passionate users, advocating the languages, and things don't turn sour like that. I would even call myself a Lisp and Ruby fanboy, I find it a funny word, not pejorative at all. Add GNU/Linux to that too. (EDIT: Of course I know those things have limitations and I wouldn't use them everything, they're not silver bullets, and that's why I prefer projects where I can use them)
The problem is this "us or them" mentality, when you can't stand people using different things, or think they're making wrong choices.
Just look at articles on ArsTechnica, CNet or specific iOS/Android sites and you'll get a bunch of comments like "iOS users are sheep who like shiny stuff" or "Android users are cheap bastards who don't buy apps".
Being "passionate" clearly isn't the problem here, being an asshole because you're obsessed with some brand, on the other hand...
Irrational "love" of foo, "hatred" of those that disagree due to psychological issues such as cognitive dissonance.