Gawker: valleywag, fanboys

The Fevered Fantasies of Apple's Fanboys

Ryan Tate — Tue, 01 Sep 2009 12:29:08 EDT

One Wall Street analyst predicts Steve Jobs will show up for Apple's Apple's iPod event next week; others doubt it. The frenzied chatter is just one way people turn into hysterical teenaged girls before these Apple things. Especially online.

Take, for example, these excerpts from a MacRumors chat forum about the event. Apple is widely expected to make a fairly routine update to its line of iPod portable music players, adding larger storage capacities and perhaps cameras. But that's not going to keep the fanboys from fantasizing about jetpacks and unicorns!

Or, literally, rainbows:

Or how about a device that lets you keep 10 years worth of ~~Steve Jobs porn~~ video and audio in your pocket?

What could possibly be better than the Beatles showing up? The Beatles and Steve Jobs showing up, and pushing Phil Schiller to the curb, forever:

This guy is very eager to spend $400 so he can run things slightly faster:

This guy wants to see a real, live, humanoid female! Ha ha, good luck with that buddy LOL:

Finally, here are a couple of overlong wish lists involving AT&T subsidizing the return of the LP, via the iPod, with free cable TV, animated album covers (read: free drugs), half terabyte hard drives and alien "OLED" screen technology. OK!

(Top pic: Jobs holds a new iPod at Apple's iPod event, September 9, 2008. Getty.)

Digg Founder Kevin Rose Meets Platonic Ideal of Digg User

James Del — Sun, 15 Mar 2009 17:20:38 EDT

Kevin Rose, founder of the Web headline-voting service Digg, meets a fan Saturday after a live Diggnation taping at the South By Southwest conference in Austin, Texas.

Why Apple Fanboys Think Reporters Are Licking Someone's Balls

matt buchanan — Tue, 18 Mar 2008 20:00:36 EDT

The problem with fanboys is that it's never enough—no matter how breathlessly one lauds a gadget, pointing out the smallest of flaws inevitably triggers a tidal wave of email accusing you of sucking the competition's teat (or worse). Mossberg calls it "The Doctrine of Insufficient Adulation." Turns out, there's a scientific explanation for fanboys' maddeningly narrow worldview, Farhad Manjoo explains his new book about the death of objective reality, True Enough. Oh, and congrats, Apple fanboys you're among the worst:

But many fans of Apple often seem to want more. They care little for honest opinion. They want to pick up the paper and see in it a reflection of their own nearly religious zeal for the thing they love. They don't want a review. They want a hagiography.

It's the "hostile media phenomenon" that brings the commentards to virtual doorsteps. Stanford psychologist Lee Moss explains the mind of a fanboy to Farhad this way: "You think there are more facts and better facts on your side than on the other side. The very act of giving them equal weight seems like bias. Like inappropriate evenhandedness."

So no, they don't actually want objectivity, or fair criticism of their beloved, whenever they cry that's all they're asking for. They want everyone to totally and completely agree with them that the object of their unabashed affection truly is the BEST. THING. EVER. They're allergic to shades of ambiguity, or as Farhad puts it:

When they come upon that difference — the gulf between what's in their heads and what's on the page — the audience tends to assume the worst: The reporter must be licking someone's balls.

Unfortunately, there's no mention of a cure. [Machinist via BBG]

The only virus you'll ever get from Apple

Paul Boutin — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:33:59 EST

The slight case of sniffles and coughs making the rounds in SF has been dubbed the Woz Cold. Urban legend has it that Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak appeared to introduce Fake Steve blogger Dan Lyons on the Peninsula a week ago despite a nagging head and/or chest cold, depending on who you ask. Woz shook hands and buddied up for photos at the event. Now we're all snuffling and Apple's stock is ... oh wait, it's back near 170. Never mind.

Steve Jobs lends reality distortion field to Apple cofounder

Owen Thomas — Fri, 02 Nov 2007 12:48:19 EDT

Paul Boutin, Valleywag's very special correspondent, may act all tough in his fancy glasses and his Beemer. But let me tell you some things you don't know about Boutin: Those are girl glasses. And he rents that Beemer by the hour from Zipcar. Yeah, real fancy, Boutin. Worst of all, get this guy next to His Steveness, and he starts giggling like a Japanese schoolgirl.

And we're not talking real Steve Jobs. We're not talking Fake Steve Jobs. We're talking Steve friggin' Wozniak. Bokay? I asked Boutin to explain this disgraceful display, captured last night at a book-tour appearance where Woz introduced Fake Stevester Dan Lyons, but Boutin just messaged back "woz pic grt on bbry tlk l8r!" (Photo by Brendan McKenna)