One of my all-time favorite images on the Internet, updated slightly for 2013:
Joey Devilla gets all credit for the original image at global nerdy.
To me, it’s more of a statement on how people in general see their own chosen operating system compared to the other OSes, but the fanboy just so happens to take it to the extreme.
And if you’re a person who actually has a life outside of the Internet, you may be asking, “What’s a fanboy?” Here’s a sharp and concise definition from Urban Dictionary:
A passionate fan of various elements of geek culture (e.g. sci-fi, comics, Star Wars, video games, anime, hobbits, Magic: the Gathering, etc.), but who lets his passion override social graces.
Of course, you can also add phones and computers to the list of geeky things the fanboy gets hysterical about.
Most people see cell phones and computers simply as tools for work and communication, but not the fanboy. For the fanboy, their chosen phone and computing platform becomes integral to their whole identity, maybe even the most important part of how they define themselves.
If you’ve ever read the amount of passion a fanboy can pour into an Internet post on why Linux is the best ever and all other OSes are evil, it’s pretty hilarious to hear that level of fanaticism, and I can say that as someone who’s been that fanatical themselves. I can remember being thirteen- and fourteen-years-old and having arguments that bordered on screaming matches over how my TI-99/4 computer was better than my friend Scott’s Apple and with an equal amount of passion, he’d implore me to abandon my false god and accept the Apple II+ as the savior of the computing world.
Funny how things change, after being a hardcore Apple fanboy before the word even existed, Scott now works for Microsoft and the two of us are both united in being solidly loyal to Redmond. Now, a little older and more mellow, like most any adult, I see my Windows Phone and the dozen Windows computers in the house as simply my chosen tools for getting the job done. It’s a much healthier, saner way of looking at things, but I must admit I do miss that crazy, raging fanboy passion of my teenage days.
