Wow, what a killjoy. Heaven forbid you get into something so much that you know everything about it.

Also no shit it's easier to talk to someone when you have a shared interest. That isn't social ineptitude, that's just how conversations work. No matter how good your social skills, eventually you have to hit on something you enjoy talking about and your conversation partner enjoys listening to; small talk only gets you so far.

This is the same dude who said video games weren't art. He was such an uptight rich snob, and I wasn't sad at all to see him go.

Haha, Ebert's definitely coming at it from a grumpy angle. OTOH, he's not talking about simply having a shared passion, but moreso about becoming totally obsessed with hobby trivia to the point of barely being able to face reality outside of those narrow confines. It's really just a case of taking fandom too far as I see it.

I also have to admit that when I was growing up, I was somewhat guilty of this kind of thing. I had trouble making small-talk, trouble talking to the opposite sex, and difficulties just hanging out and chilling with others. I turned to stuff like D&D, comics & videogames, and could relate pretty easily to people in the same boat. But I truly did use it as a way of walling off various worldly realities, using those things as a crutch until various social skills later started to improve. I have to agree with Ebert's final point though, especially if it relates to middle-aged people-- if the only thing they're able to talk about is their hobby trivia, then it pretty quickly turns in to a painful conversation IME.

Btw, "Triumph" famously does a pretty good send-up here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKT7bx-fmtk

Fan is short for fanatic. And fans seem to hate that fact.

This reminds me of the job I had with this one guy that was way too much into family guy, particularly stewie.

Everyone avoided him as much as possible. He always wanted to go to lunch with people. I accepted once... They say it's better to regret something you have done rather than something you haven't done.

Maybe it's just me, but I'm reading this as ableist against autism.

Neurotypicals also over commit to fandom and flaunt social norms for the sake of it in bouts of nerdy excitement.

Everyone should, I highly recommend it

Okay, I have a working understanding of "autism" (while arguably being on the spectrum myself, haha), but could you put that all together in to a plain-language sentence, mssr or mdme?

Hot DAMN, this is a brilliant & accurate observation. Things I've subconsciously supposed, but consciously never could figure out why people get obsessed & form fandoms over movies & sports etc. This is it! This is why.

"subconsciously" is right!

As we say in Straya, "I stuffed up."