Fanboys: The Hydra Paradox

Fanboy (noun) – 1. a person willing to defend and promote the object of his affection regardless of fact and objectivity.  2. a person who is completely loyal to a game,  company, etc.  regardless of if they suck or not.

We all know fanboys.  Many people use the term as an insult of sorts, which is a bit unfair.  Fanboys are an impressive lot, as they seem capable of making others hate even the best quality movies, shows, and games by their near inconceivable levels of annoyance.   No matter how much you might actually like something, you will avoid it like the plague to spite the asshole who wouldn’t shut up about it for 15 hours.

OH MY FUCKING GOD I GET IT! BATTLESTAR GALACTICA IS A GREAT BLEND OF SCI-FI AND POLITICAL COMMENTARY!

Fanboys can be devoted to just about anything, from movies and TV shows (with Star Trek and Star Wars being the most well know of the fanboy communities), to tech (Apple), to games (Halo), and celebrities (Kristen Bell).  While a majority of fanboy communities revolve around sci-fi, it would be a mistake to assume it does not stretch beyond the traditional geek fare.  Mad Men is a great recent example of a non-sci-fi entity gaining that kind of devoted (and annoying) fan base.  Yes, fanboys stretch across many terrains.  For the sake of this post, however, I will focus on the TV show and movie corners of this domain.

That is because fanboys of a particular show or movie (or by extension, a director or producer) partake in an interesting habit.  One they latch onto something to love and to hold forever and ever, they extend some of that devotion to other things that have some connection to the original object of affection.

For example, let’s look at Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Look at her!

Buffy developed quite the devoted fan base in it’s time, and still does today despite being off the air for seven years.  Buffy fanboys exhibit all the typical traits you would expect.  They defend it (sometimes illogically) against all criticism.  It is their most favoritest thing in the world, and nothing (not even the love of a woman) will ever be better than it.  But what is more important to my point, is how they put everyone involved with the show on a pedistal.  Thusly, anything those people do outside of the Buffy universe gets some of the awesomeness of Buffy rubbed off on it.  In some cases this makes sense.  As the creative force behind the show, Joss Wheadon deserves a bit of benefit-of-the-doubt when he has a new project come out.  Everything that happened on Buffy had to go by him, so if you like Buffy, it’s a fairly safe assumption that you will like the other things he does afterwords.

When it comes to the actors, though, its a bit different.  By their nature, if an actor is good they will be a very different person in the different productions they are in.  It’s easy to love an actor or actress in one movie, and hate them in another.  So it’s slightly more shallow to give an new movie or show the benifit of the doubt because you like an actor who is in it, especially since most actors and actresses have nothing to do with the creative side of a show or movie.  Back to Buffy fanboys, they take it a step further.  They like the actors who were on Buffy, not necessarily because they are good, but simply because they were on Buffy.

For example, let’s look at Alyson Hannigan.

I said look!

Alyson played Willow on the Buffy television program.  She also stared in the American Pie movies (the ones that were good enough to be released in theaters, anyway).  She is, in my opinion, a talented comedic actress.  But when How I Met Your Mother started in 2005, the Buffy fans did not say “That Alyson Hannigan sure is talented, I should check this show out.”  They said “It’s Willow from Buffy!  This show is gonna be awesome!”  They based their decision to watch a show not even on the talent of an actor, but on one character that actor played.

This can be extended to other things.  “Look, this movie has Starbuck from Battlestar Galactica in it!  Let’s go see it!”  Or “Ned from Pushing Daisies is gonna be in a new show!  We need to support it!”  Fans of Wheadon’s shows are especially prone to this, as they have an entire website devoted to those shows that keep track of what projects actors who appeared in his productions are working on, and then encouraging the fans to support those shows/movies.  These fanboy’s decisions on what shows or movies to watch are based not on the individual merits of the show or movie in question, but whether that show or movie has a connection to their beloved obsession.

This is what I have dubbed the Hydra Paradox.

Don't call it a paradox to it's face. It'll fuck you up.

In theory, this tendenciy of fanboys sounds like it would be a good thing.  Following the actors and other people associated with your favorite show seems to be a great way to branch out.  To go back to the Alyson Hannigan example, it’s very possible that many of those Buffy fanboys would have written HIMYM as another boring predictable sitcom and ignored it had it not been for the presence of Willow.  Surely HIMYM made out in that deal.  Theoretically, this fanboy devotion to those assciated with their obsession would provide a way to explore entertainment that is outside their comfort zone, and watch and enjoy things they would otherwise shrug off.

But this presents it’s own problem.  As a fanboy begins to rely more and more on the presence of someone associated with Lost or Stargate to determine what they view, they begin to shut out all other shows and movies.  For example, if two new shows start up at the same time, and one of them has John Locke from Lost in it and the other doesn’t have a connection to Lost, the Lost fanboy is going to go with the former.  Which show actually looks better is a secondary issue, they are there to support Terry O’Quinn simply because he once played a character on their favorite show.

This extreme, blind devotion is ridiculous.  While it is generalized (please don’t flood the comments section bitching about how your being a fanboy of whatever doesn’t cloud your judgement blah bah), most fanboys practice this in at least some capacity.  It is a particularly interesting practice to me, as fanboys tend to go on about how Buffy or Pushing Daisies or Chuck gets overlooked by the public because it doesn’t have any big stars attacthced to it.  People need to look beyond that to see how great and original the show actually is.  The problem is, it goes both ways.   Just because your actor is more obscure than the mainstream viewers, doesn’t mean your practice is any different.  Angle from Buffy (and Angle) doesn’t make Bones a good show.  That has to be determined by all the other aspects of the show.  Because if the only reason you are watching is because you love Angle, well, the show itself probably isn’t that great then, is it?

My point, and my beef with “fanboys”, is that a movie, a tv show, anything, should be judged by it’s own merit.  If you go see a movie that looks like crap, but has Jessica Alba in it so you go see it anyway, that’s idiotic.  Granted, it’s something we all do to some extent.  With all the decisions we have to make, we need any kind of short cut we can take.  But many fanboys take this to a whole new level.  It’s fine to like Hugh Laurie, the actor.  But when you begin to worship him because he plays House, and associate everything he does to that character, you step over the crazy line.  You need to at least try and show some objectivity, otherwise everyone is right to look down on the fanboy community.