The Truth Behind the Fanboy and Why They Exist

Part 4: Fanboy / Fanboi / Fanboyeee -- Seriously

First we just want to say that we hope that you enjoyed the first half of this feature piece, as it was carefully crafted to include humor that only a gamer will appreciate. Now that we have dealt with that part of the issue though, it is time to get serious.

Every now and then the bullpen here at Gaming Update plays host to legitimate etymological discussions whose primary function -- and as a basic public service -- is the hashing out the meaning of words that commonly appear in Geek and Gamer Culture. This is an important side-effect of the editorial process and good training for our staff and interns and, as we are theoretically a news reporting agency, an area that we have a genuine and heartfelt interest in.

The most recent explosive debate centered around the word Fanboy (from here on that is the spelling we will use, but it is meant to include all of the variations) and its use in pieces that appear on our site.

Any serious fan of words owns at least four basic reference sources -- the Oxford English Dictionary, the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary, a copy of Doctor Who: A History of the Universe and a well-worn copy of A Walk in the Woods: Rediscovering America on the Appalachian Trail by Bill Bryson -- because Bill Bryson is a master of prose and philosophy and must be saluted first, even if you are a general.

The first book is used when someone really annoys you and you need to haul out the big guns to shut them up, and since the word goes from God to the OED to You, that pretty much settles that!

The second book is the one that is really your writers toolbox and which you call upon for everyday average word questions since it consists of just one physical volume as opposed to the 22 that the OED manifests as. You could always use an electronic form of the OED but nobody does that because it simply does not have the same impact as hauling out one of the thick volumes of the lovingly bound and crafted OED and using it to beat your opponent over the head with. We're just saying...

The third book needs no explaining -- it's like binary numbers, you either understand it or you don't, and if you don't, well then no explaining is possible!

The fourth book is actually there so you have something to read that will make you chuckle when you are doing things like commuting, sitting on the throne, or attending meetings with editors -- in which case it is perfectly acceptable to use the audio book version but NOT the abridged one, which is only for cowards.

According to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary the earliest known use of the term "fanboy" was in an English-language publication back in 1919, but as is often the case with old words, its meaning was different because it was not used as a pejorative as it is today.

The first popular use of the word -- and the use that began the path towards turning the word into an insult -- appears in the comic book subculture in the early 1980's when it was used as an element of the illustration for the cover of a comic collector's price guide; while technically this was not really an editorial use of the word, its appearance in the illustration appears to have set off the chain of events that ultimately ended up in it being added to the lexicon and rightly taking its place as a sarcastic and insulting form of address in modern gaming.

The cover illustration of the price guide was in fact a representation of a group of overzealous comic book collectors whose sartorial splendor extended to T-shirts that identified them as "Fanboys of America" -- interestingly enough the T-Shirt itself has evolved into a singular form of philosophical expression in its own right, but that is a subject for a completely different feature piece we will have to write some day -- and who are in the wearing of the expression illustrating the extreme measures that they are prepared to go to in order to preserve their comic books -- really you sort of had to be there, but you get the idea...

Shortly after the appearance of this meme the comic "Fandom Confidential" by Jim Engel and Chuck Fiala makes use of the word and its concept in order to illustrate the underlying impact in the frames in which they meet comic artist/writer John Byrne and devolve into representative examples of the mindless and overly-emotional "fan" that takes adoration of an object or person to extremes, something that is common enough even today that it warranted a word all its own...

The character of John Byrne observes that the pair are "a couple of fanboys in bondage" (which is itself an expression of fanboyism in that it is an homage to the Monty Python sketch in which an Elizabethan era character reads what she claims to be a new Shakespeare work called "Gay Boys in Bondage").

As we continue to trace the etymological re-emergence of the word in the 1980's we find that it has suddenly obtained major traction, appearing widely in a very diverse selection of publications, and this is also where it begins to absorb the negative connotations that it embraces today.

By 1990 the term was being used outside of the comics and video game communities, having naturally made the transition to common use in music and science fiction circles, but its appearance as a means for classifying certain subsets of the video game fan community attending the Electronic Entertainment Expo in that decade is largely the event that catapulted the word into the modern lexicon and permanently attached its new and harshly negative meaning.

The word "Fanboy" was added to the Merriam-Webster Collegiate Dictionary in 2008, and has come to represent the adoration or worship of literally any person/object/product when that support is both unconditional and unreasonable.

The most visible example at the time was the rabid and uncompromisable support that was being given to products created by Apple Computer -- most notably its new Operating System and its line of consumer audio products -- in the face of evidence that suggested and later proved that the company was essentially victimizing its user base by outright inflating the prices applied to its catalog of products with the intention of obtaining as much money from the obsessed community of supporters as possible.