We all have our Irrational reasons and nothing will be gained by our proselytizing.

The Internet is fast changing the way people argue and I don't need to compare and contrast classical debate systems for you to relate to this.

Check any forum, comment tab or message board that's at least about a week or two old with its contents made public and you will find people going at it, debating why their chosen product is better than the other person's.

In middle-class and higher consumer cultures in the Philippines, people can use all sorts of things as status symbols from something as absurd as flip-flops to something as useful as man-gear. With all the product choices, people also find their way fighting for higher status through comparing their taste in products.

Haagen-dasz vs. Local ice cream brands, Jollibee vs. Mcdo, Merrell vs. The North Face – it goes on and on.

Offline, these arguments are between Women, because women will value their status more than anything using brands. They can't be seen as much as possible, wearing generic Flip-flops. They always make it a point to go for those branded ones. They can't be seen without a branded bag or shirt. These are also usually about absurd things that don't cost a hefty amount of cash, like who has been to Starbucks, or other coffee shops as they really find it worth their time and is equivalent to a higher status (i don't know how getting a photo taken sipping a cup of coffee in a well-known coffee shop makes your status higher).

Online, these arguments are between men, because men will defend their ego no matter what. Being in the internet, it's usually about the most expensive and high-tech stuff. Sometimes, like in my case, it's about sneakers. Stuff that are more expensive tend to equate with more brand loyalty.

Now in the case of women, the explanation to all this is colonial mentality which pretty much affects most, if not all, women in the Philippines. For example, over the debate between Jollibee and Mcdonald's, women tend to go for Mcdonald's because it's a foreign brand. They prefer half-filipinos rather than pure ones (evidently seen in "pinoy" big brother and any other Philippine mainstream entertainment). They can even go for old men just as long as they are caucasian. So they just like brands. Foreign brands, from the products they buy to the men they pick. That's also the reason why they love coffee shops so much (Starbucks has become a status symbol here). So to win a flame war with women, just explain colonial mentality in full, and they'll shut up.

With men, it's a totally different case. Colonial mentality affects us solely because the things we love aren't made in the Philippines. Has there been a Filipino Car brand?(yes, that excludes that makeshift solar car) Now, to other things like our outdoor equipment, our zippers are ykk, and some of are gear are Tribu. But to things that are of life-and-death, every adventurer, from all over the world, has to use Petzl. For men, the misconception is:

We prefer the things we own over the things we don't because we made rational choices when we bought them. Unlike women, that isn't brand specific.

But the truth is, we prefer the things we own because we rationalize our past choices to protect our sense of self. This is called: Fanboyism.


Fanboyism isn't anything new, it's just a component of branding, which is something marketers and advertisers have known about since Quaker Oats created a friendly logo to go on their sacks.

There really is nofriendly Quaker family making such oats back in 1877. The company wanted people to associate the trustworthiness and honesty of Quakers with their product regardless if they were really Quakers. It worked.

This was one of, if not the first, such attempt to create brand loyalty – that nebulous emotional connection people have with certain companies which turns them into defenders and advocates for corporations who don't give a sh*t.

In experiments where people were given Coke and Pepsi in unmarked cups and then hooked up to a brain scanner, the device clearly showed a certain number of them preferred Pepsi while tasting it.

When those people were told they where drinking Pepsi, a fraction of them, the ones who had enjoyed Coke all their lives, did something unexpected. The scanner showed their brains scrambling the pleasure signals, dampening them. They then told the experimenter afterward they had preferred Coke in the taste tests.

They lied, but in their subjective experiences of the situation, they didn't. They really did feel like they preferred Coke after it was all over, and they altered their memories to match their emotions.

They had been branded somewhere in the past and were loyal to Coke. Even if they actually enjoyed Pepsi more, huge mental constructs prevented them from admitting it, even to themselves (Pepsi, does in fact taste better than Coke which prompted the latter to make a new, sweeter, version, which tastes more like Pepsi, named the Coke II. It was a no-brainer, they switched back to the original formula).

Fanboyism and Brand Loyalty, Add this sort of loyalty to something expensive, or a hobby which demands a large investment of time and money, and you get a fanboy. They defend their favorite stuff and ridicule the competition, ignoring facts if they contradict their emotional connection.

So, what creates this emotional connection to stuff and the companies who make doo-dads?

Marketers and advertising agencies call the opposite of fanboys as hostages.

Hostages have no choice but to buy certain products, like toilet paper and gasoline. Since they can't choose to own or not to own the product, they are far less likely to care if one version of toilet paper is better than another, or one gas station's fuel is made by Shell or Chevron. (but in the Philippines, in the case of flip-flops, fanboys exist in the context of women).

On the other hand, if the product is unnecessary, like an iPad, there is a great chance the customer will become a fanboy because they had to choose to spend a big chunk of money on it. It's the choosing one thing over another which leads to narratives about why you did it.

If you have to rationalize why you bought a luxury item, you will probably find ways to see how it fits in with your self-image.

Branding builds on this by giving you the option to create the person you think you are through choosing to align yourself with the mystique of certain products.

Apple advertising, for instance, doesn't mention how good their computers are. Instead, they give you examples of the sort of people who purchase those computers. The idea is to encourage you to say, "Yeah, I'm not some stuffy, conservative nerd. I have taste and talent, like those celebrities in the ads."

Are Apple computers better than Microsoft-based computers? Is one better than the other when looked at empirically, based on data and analysis and testing and objective comparisons?

In reality, It doesn't matter.

Those considerations come after a person has begun to see themselves as the sort of person who would own one. If you see yourself as the kind of person who owns Apple computers, or who drives hybrids, or who smokes Camels, or uses Deuter packs, you've been branded.

Once a person is branded, they will defend their brand by finding flaws in the alternative choice and pointing out benefits in their own.

There are a number of cognitive biases which converge to create this behavior.

The Endowment Effect pops up when you feel like the things you own are superior to the things you do not.

I can demonstrate this by asking a group of scouts how much they think a scout badge is worth. The scouts will agree to an amount around 100 pesos, and then someone in the group will be given the badge for free.

Then, after an hour, they ask the person how much they would be willing to sell the badge back to the experimenter for. They usually ask for more money, like 180 pesos.

Ownership adds special emotional value to things, even if those things were free.

Another bias is the Sunk Cost Fallacy. This is when you've spent money on something you don't want to own or don't want to do and can't get it back.

For instance, you might pay too much for some Turkish takeout food that really sucks, (like their milk shake) but you consume it anyway, or you sit through a movie even after you realize it's just horrible.

Sunk Cost can creep up on you too. Maybe you've been a subscriber to something for a long time and you realize it costs too much, but you don't end your subscription because of all the money you've invested in the service so far.

Is Skycable better than Parasat, or PSM better than EGM ? If you've spent a lot of money on subscription fees, you might be unwilling to switch to alternatives because you feel "invested" in the brand.

These biases feed into the big daddy of behaviors which is most responsible for branding, fanboyism and Internet arguments about why the thing you own is better than the thing the other guy owns. Clearly a case of Choice Supportive Bias.

Choice Supportive Bias is a big part of being a person, it pops up all the time when you buy things.

It works like this: You have several options, like say for a new television. Before you make a choice you tend to compare and contrast all the different qualities of all the televisions on the market.

Which is better, Samsung or Sony, plasma or lcd, 1080p or 1080i – ugh, so many variables!

You eventually settle on one option, and after you make your decision you then look back and rationalize your actions by believing your television was the best of all the televisions you could have picked.

In retail, this is a well-understood phenomenon, and to prevent Buyer's Remorse they try not to overwhelm you with choice. Studies show if you have only a handful of options at the point of purchase, you will be less likely to fret about your decision afterward.


On Fanboyism and Brand loyalty, It's purely emotional, the moment you choose. People with brain damage to their emotional centers who have been rendered into Spock-like beings of pure logic find it impossible to decide between things as simple as which cereal to buy. They stand transfixed in the aisle, contemplating every element of their potential decision – the calories, the shapes, the net weight – everything. They can't pick because they have no emotional connection to anything, no emotional motivations.

To combat postdecisional dissonance, the feeling you have committed to one option when the other option may have been better, you make yourself feel justified in what you selected to lower the anxiety brought on by questioning yourself.

All of this forms a giant neurological cluster of associations, emotions, details of self-image and biases around the things you own.

This is why all over the Internet there are people in word fights over video games and sports teams, cell phones and TV shows.

The Internet provides a fertile breeding ground for this sort of behavior to flourish.

So, the next time you reach for the mouse and get ready to join in a Flame war, hesitate.

Realize you have your irrational reasons, and so do they, and nothing will be gained by your proselytizing.