Sherlock Holmes or Professor Presbury?

Well, we've talked about the Sherlockian ladies a bit here lately, so it seems only fair to discuss the boys for a bit, one of which I happen to be. Testosterone and the internet are a very bad combination.

Sure, internet, the communication paradigm shift that has done so much for so many. Education, entertainment, community . . . many a good thing. Especially for the fans, it would seem.

Well, until you bring the testosterone in. Once that comes in, a fan who likes said thing a little too much to hold on to their sense of humor decides, as the hill-folk used to say, "Them's fightin' words!"

And so we get  . . . well, I'm not going to say. They don't deserve the clicks with their straight-to-the-ad-hominum arguments against . . . um, yeah, not saying that either. Were I of a similar mind, I might start to wonder about this male person's obsessive-compulsive tendencies, lack of a sense of humor, or choice of a much-flawed work to champion (not tbat much-flawed work -- I'm behaving). But I'm not . . . well, I guess I just did. See what happens when the testosterone comes into play?

Angry fanboys with no Fight Club to exhaust their scrappin' urges rampage all over the internet, as many a female of the species has observed. We boys don't usually stop to call it out so much, because basically we just want to go in and punch back, and many do, without regard to the fact that there's another human being at the end of the fiber optic cables and wi-fi connections.

Where it gets interesting with Sherlock Holmes is that many of us come to Sherlock because we relate to him as the outsider who is just a bit smarter than those around him. And for some, that's a fair estimation of their situation. For others, there might be a little wishful thinking involved. But when you add a touch of superiority complex to a healthy dose of fannish self-righteous anger and the in-the-moment ability to instantly put one's feelings out to the world . . .  yikes. Sherlock-loving fanboys can be the worst. (Well, maybe not the worst worst. Sheesh, but there's some stuff out there.)

But it's all just monkey stuff, really.

Animal territorial growling masked by a decent vocabulary.

And sometimes, we have reason to growl, something that needs set right. But some other times, if we're perfectly honest with ourselves, we're just reacting emotionally . . . very much like our hero Sherlock Holmes would not do. One of the reasons we like him so much.

Some days, a fanboy has to choose between emulating Sherlock Holmes or giving into the monkey biology like Professor Presbury. It's a choice.

And if said fanboy has to write a long rambling blogpost to talk the monkey off the Empire State Building, well, whatever works.