Is it fair or achievable (in a legitimate, fair-minded sense) to compare rabid believers among true-believer, herd-mentality fanboys with the right-wing birthers and townhall “death panel” protesters? This idea was thrown into my lap several minutes ago, and so far…well, it’s not coalescing. That’s because there’s nothing that fanboys have said or done in response to, say, District 9 that echoes rightie nutters screaming about socialism poisoning the American tradition and so on. Maybe I’m missing something, but I don’t see it.

I suppose a case can be made by the more-than-500 comments on Rotten Tomatoes that attack N.Y. Press critic Armond White for having written a District 9 pan. And a few aimed at Spoutblog‘s Karina Longworth for doing the same. There is a religious current inside the fanboy mentality — a current that gets really mad if you dump on the faith they’re buying into.