If you've ever wondered why fanboys can behave like such unbelievable jerks, as surely anyone who's ever looked at an Internet comments thread has pondered, then this might come as a revealing insight: chemically, fanboys are basically in love with their consoles on a brain-chemical level. Diss their beloved Xbox, or Playstation, or whatever else, and it's like you're calling their girlfriend ugly to their face.
"It often takes time to develop such an irrational attachment to a product," explained Dr David Lewis-Hodgson, author of The Brain Sell and director of research at Mindlab International, in an interview with Kotaku UK. "Sometimes it’s like falling in love - what happens then is that you get a tsunami of a neurotransmitter called dopamine into the brain, which gives you a huge buzz. This happens with products, they can do exactly the same thing - in fact when we look at addictive behaviour, we find that people become addicted to products. The sight and touch of the product gives them a dopamine high."
So when you try to argue with a fanboy, you're causing them to behave as if you're criticising an actual person that they love? "Absolutely," he says.
"It often takes time to develop such an irrational attachment to a product," explained Dr David Lewis-Hodgson, author of The Brain Sell and director of research at Mindlab International, in an interview with Kotaku UK. "Sometimes it’s like falling in love - what happens then is that you get a tsunami of a neurotransmitter called dopamine into the brain, which gives you a huge buzz. This happens with products, they can do exactly the same thing - in fact when we look at addictive behaviour, we find that people become addicted to products. The sight and touch of the product gives them a dopamine high."
So when you try to argue with a fanboy, you're causing them to behave as if you're criticising an actual person that they love? "Absolutely," he says.
it's just fun. We don't care as much as outsiders think. It's just fun
