Be a Geek, Not a Fanboy

Movies can be the source of many a disagreement. Sometimes they can be civil disagreements amongst friends, other times it's the juvenile ridiculousness of the IMDB message boards. I unabashedly proclaim myself to be a movie and TV geek. Many of my friends are. We're good people with level heads and on the occasions when we do disagree we never fly off the handle about it. When we see a show or a film we don't like we're vocal about it and the reasons why, but true geekdom is more about the love of these things. I would always rather write or talk about a movie I love than a movie I hate. Geeks are about love.
Fanboys, on the other hand, are all about complaining. No matter what they will find something to complain about and fixate upon it. If they don't nitpick about the movie itself (which is incredibly rare) then they have to focus their bile elsewhere. Namely anyone who doesn't feel the exact same way they do. Fanboys think that anyone who doesn't fall in lock step with their exact point of view is an idiot who should have their movie watching license taken away from them.
As you well know, I love "The Dark Knight." I think it's far and away the best movie thus far in 2008 and easily the best comic book adaptation I've ever seen. But if someone doesn't feel the same way I respect their right to disagree and acknowledge that them not loving it just as much does not make them a moron. Some of the smartest people I know have vastly different tastes than I do. And that's okay. Apparently, not everyone thinks so. This from IMDB:

Newspaper critics who failed to shower The Dark Knight with undiluted praise have themselves been deluged with sometimes ferocious criticism from the film's fans, Los Angeles Times columnist Patrick Goldstein observed today (Friday). Goldstein, who says that he himself admires the film, notes that the latest critic to feel the heat is the Wall Street Journal's Joe Morgenstern. (Most reviews of the movie appeared last Wednesday or Thursday, in sync with the early release of the film in many cities; Morgenstern's appeared on Friday, the "official" release date.) Morgenstern told Goldstein, "I've gotten 250 or 300 e-mails, almost all with the vilest, most abusive language you could possibly imagine. I was stunned. These people aren't just discourteous. They're insane." The abusive attacks on Morgenstern spilled over onto other entertainment websites and blogs. "I write for an educated readership and usually the responses to my reviews are courteous and collegial," he remarked. "But this was really ugly. It did feel like a mob."


In closing, be a geek. Get excited over things that seem silly and unimportant to the average Joe. But please, please, please, don't be a fanboy. It's just ugly. I don't want being a "Dark Knight" fan to come attached with a stigma because of these children. Let's be about joy people. Being a geek should be a happy experience.