fanboys

…I want to jump kick them. I was just reading through a dpreview forum (something I generally avoid going into unless I’m looking to reinforce my cynicism against humanity) in which a poster asked the question as to what 5D users are using their cameras for (income, or hobby). He said he didn’t care about whether or not it had weather sealing or nonsensical and arbitrary marketing designations as a pro camera… but merely what people were using it for. Dozens (maybe hundreds… I didn’t read past the first two pages of replies) of people sounded off that he was a fool for suggesting the 5D was a pro camera (obviously not relevant to the posted topic), and of course 10 more people had to spout on about how it’s the photographer, not the camera, blah blah blah. I think though, that upon reading the following reply, my disdain for humans was fully realized.

“I am confused, if you are not interested in hearing about bulid quality or weather sealing, which is main trait of a ‘pro’ body, what are you looking for? The use you make of it, not matter how hard you bang on it, will not change what kind of body it is…again, no matter what because that depends mostly on things you said you do not care about!

Should your question not be if it is a camera aimed at ‘amateurs’ or ‘pros’ instead ??”

Again, here is the question that reply is directed at:

“After the umpteenth time of reading some say the 5D is “not a pro body”, I thought it would be interesting to see how people in this forum are using their 5Ds.

I’m not interested in hearing about bulid quality or weather sealing. I just want to know who is using the camera only for their own personal pleasure (amateur) and those who are using it to generate income (professional).”

The person whose reply I posted, so far as I can tell, is unable to think in terms of literal definitions rather than marketing hype and pitch. In fact, when somebody even makes an attempt to question these marketing designations, the online forum community seems to be so thrown, that they assume it is the people using literal definitions that are the ones who are idiots.

In short: avoid forums like democracy. Making your vote known only reinforces how useless all the other votes are.

(update: full forum post found here)

This entry was posted on Friday, May 16th, 2008 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.