Why Apple Fanboys Think Reporters Are Licking Someone’s Balls

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]