Techie Fairy

Well, they do! And I mean ANY fanboi, for any product. I just don’t see the point. Like the time someone on Twitter told me that I needed to take a long hard look at myself and admit that maybe I wasn’t the technical genius I thought I was (eh? Are you reading someone else’s Twitter, pal?) purely and simply because I wouldn’t agree with him that the iPhone was the best thing ever.

I wasn’t disagreeing with him, at all. All I’d asked him to do was justify his claim. Explain to me why he felt this way. And the second I did so, I incurred his derision and earned a block. Well, in every cloud, etc etc 🙂

But before breaking my heart (snigger) and saying goodbye for ever (ta ta, tosser!), this illustrious individual who was obviously so very superior to me in every single way (in his head at least) did deign to give me his main reason for his fruit-based evangelism…

Angry Birds.

Yup, you heard right. This person had decided that an actually very impressive piece of technology (I never said I didn’t like them, but I won’t hero worship any tech, ever) was the mutt’s meatballs based solely on a game. Nothing to do with the engineering marvel that it actually is, as are all smartphones. It had a game that he liked that the little green man didn’t have at that time.

Hmmm.

Still, the robot afficionados can be just as bad. Once again, when new to Android, I asked someone who was a massive fanboi to explain to me why rooting your phone didn’t constitute a security risk. A genuine question based on a desire to learn new things. I received this reply (or something resembling it) ….

“Oh I can’t be bothered having this conversation with you. Your views are antiquated and stubborn, and if you can’t be bothered keeping abreast of new developments then you have no business trying to use them.”

I beg your pardon?

So, in other words, asking someone who does know something you don’t to tell you about it, as a way of learning about new stuff, is now not an acceptable way of “keeping abreast of developments”. That’s every single educator of any kind surplus to requirements then, isn’t it?

Hmmmm.

I have no objection to anyone having favourite pieces of kit. I have favourites. But I also know that if a better piece of kit comes along and I use it and it does the job I need better than the old one, I will have a new favourite. There is nothing wrong with that. And that’s why so many people have their favourites. But to dismiss all alternatives as rubbish because of your favourite, that’s just short-sighted, insulting and dumb. Someone else’s technological “needs” will always be different to yours. And you have no business belittling or attacking the alternatives and their devotees purely because they don’t agree with you. There’s a reason there is so much choice – different things suit different people.

And it’s this refusal to accept this simple truth – that there is a choice and someone might not need or want the same as you – that annoys me about fanbois. And quite frankly, scares me a little. If they can get this obnoxious about a phone……