History of the Fanboy War by Draegos-kun
The Fanboys Wars more or less started because of one little fan comic strip that
appeared innocently on the forums about a year and a half ago (October, 2001).
Obviously, Miho had taken center stage at this point; this was during the time that
she had orchestrated the MMR duel between Largo and Ping at the One-Yen Arcade. I created the strip above and posted it on the forum because I missed Yuki (it bears
noting that this was my third such "fan comic," though it was the first one to
feature the YLF, and so I was already carrying the reputation of Yuki fandom).
The Miho crowd didn't take well to the way I referred to them in the strip, and
naturally responded by rallying against me in the replies to my post. The fledgling
Church of Miho, which up to this point was really nothing but a quaint little fan club and not yet a group of pro-Miho roleplayers, took the reigns and called me out,
figuratively speaking, and suddenly everyone was pleasantly "at war" in the thread,
posting their latest tongue-in-cheek insults at the other fan groups and roleplaying
a huge battle amongst the fans. In response to the growing hostilities, Largo fangirl
Meagen donned her now-famous nurse costume for the first time and took it upon
herself to treat (and occasionally glomp) the cute bishie fanboys who were wounded
in the war (even this far back, I was teasing her about it, too); the MedAyanamis made their debut in this thread.
Everyone managed to get involved and contribute to the hilarity in some form or
fashion, even the ones who didn't have a favorite MT girl. DietWaterCzar fanned the
flames of the battle by taunting all sides. Phaedrus and another few people known at
the time for their superior poetry kept a running haiku commentary on the situation.
The newly-christened Kimiko's Army converted the local Anna Miller's into a bomb
shelter for non-combatants to take cover in and wait out the violence. People I’d
never heard of were showing up and adding to the pure insanity of it all. Even Piro
showed up at one point early on just to chuckle at the whole brouhaha (his exact
words were, "you people.... scare me...."). The whole experience had the look and
feel of a fever dream.
It was this thread and the strip that started it that more or less birthed this
bizarre forum tradition we practice here of roleplaying these clashes between the
imaginary armies worshipping the various characters of Megatokyo.
This incident is referred to now as "The Fanboy Wars." The words are always spoken
with appropriate caution and fear. It was the first (and arguably best) time
seemingly everyone on the forum all came together and just acted silly, as a
community. It’s no surprise at all, then, why so many people look back on the
phenomenon fondly (or with unspeakable fear).
THe Fanboy Wars, in a nutshell, were a barrel of monkeys. Only problem was, people
immediately started trying to immitate it, recreate it after the fact without the
benifit of spontanaety, and it was really, really bad. Which is why roleplays that
threaten to become huge wars are often looked down on or feared. I've always thought
that was a pity, really -- a pity wars like that are now apparently taboo, and a pity
that the concept was ruined so quickly by copycats -- because a little war on the
forum every now and then can be really fun.