Peter Nowak: Apple and Nintendo crazies - get a life!

Years ago, there was a memorable skit on Saturday Night Live involving everybody's favourite Star Trek captain, William Shatner.

Best known as Captain Kirk on the original series, Shatner was hosting SNL and appeared in a skit as himself, speaking to an audience of hard-core Trekkies at a science-fiction convention.

These fans are known for their obsessive interest in the show's inconsequential minutiae, so the gag was for Shatner to answer - and become increasingly irritated by - their ridiculous line of questioning.

The skit culminated in a now-legendary television moment, where an exasperated Shatner broke down and screamed: "Get a life!"

It was a moment of comedic genius - that Shatner, a god to these people, could turn on them and say what we'd all been thinking for years. And you had to believe that at least part of him was serious.

Now if only someone would do the same to hard-core Apple and Nintendo fans. But it doesn't look like Steve Jobs or his counterpart at Nintendo will, so for lack of anyone better, allow me: "Get a life!"

Oh dear, now I've done it. By the time you, the loyal newspaper reader, have read this article, it will be posted in every Apple and Nintendo chatroom, forum and message board, and my inbox will be full of email calling for everything from my immediate firing to a public castration.

That's because these companies inspire passionate - and often irrational - fervour in some of their customers. The vast majority of Apple and Nintendo customers are right-minded folks, but each has a small-but-extremely-vocal minority that is simply out of its tree.

Take a recent Connect article. In his column two weeks ago, Peter Griffin wrote about his displeasure with Apple's refusal to make its iPod compatible with Microsoft's digital rights management technology.

He argued that Apple's divergence with the music industry was going to cause it bigger headaches in the future, and annoy music lovers and iPod owners alike.

That was enough to incur the wrath of the Apple army, provoking a raft of responses - some well thought out and argued, but most of the "you're a big stupidhead" flavour.

Some sample comments include: "You are indeed a moron," and "Great article on the iPod. If you're a witless lackey." Then there was the reader who was "shocked by the inaccuracies" of the column, yet addressed his email to Peter Gabriel. Shock the monkey, indeed.

But as bad as Apple crazies are, Nintendo obsessors are worse.

A few years ago, I wrote a negative review of the Gamecube title Phantasy Star Online for a Canadian website. Within hours, a lengthy website thread had sprouted up that not only denounced my review, but also posted my home phone number and address, and called for my death, preferably following the removal of my privates with a sharp knife.

I met similar reaction a few months ago after writing a Connect column that criticised Nintendo for lagging behind its competitors' innovations.

So what is it that inspires such madness? What causes people to care so passionately about a company that doesn't give a damn about them, outside of what they spend on its products?

The answer must lie in a common link between the two. In effect, they compete against big, bad monopolies: Apple in its battle with Microsoft, Nintendo in its struggle against Sony and Microsoft.

There's probably a host of psychological conditions that could apply to these crazed consumers - arrested development, social maladjustment and a persecution complex are just a few that come to mind - but in the end it's probably the much simpler explanation: they like to root for the underdog.

Which would be fine, if it wasn't in such an extremist manner. We journalists love to get responses - our frail egos are reinforced by proof that somebody is actually reading what we write.

But what gets me, aside from the obvious idiocy, is that most of the responses come from people who normally aren't even aware of the Herald's existence, let alone have ever read it before.

They trawl the internet looking for anybody criticising their precious company, and pounce on them en masse when found.

Once they've had their say - and they almost always moan about how we're "doing a disservice to our readers", like they even know who they are - they move on and jump on the next unsuspecting writer.

In the end, these people are only good for business, as every extra hit to our website they generate is more money in the bank for us.

So go ahead Apple and Nintendo fanboys, flame away. We're not listening, and you're only making our organisation richer.

And for the love of God, get a life.