…Writer-director Kevin Smith, who has a top-rated podcast–and a Ms. Pac-Man machine!–believes fanboys deserve all the credit for the $26 million that Clerks II earned at the box office last year, five times what the film cost. “Had I not gotten onto the Internet in 1995, I doubt I’d still be working,” he says. “You create personal relationships with these people who are essentially your employers.” In a nod to his fan base, one of the characters in Clerks II is a 19-year-old Transformers-obsessed virgin.

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“There’s this perception that the geeks have inherited the earth,” says Smith, “but if they had, Grindhouse would have grossed $100 million. It plays to a marginalized culture.”

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While the best-known fanboys, including Knowles and Garabedian, are caressed by the studios, which invite them to events and film sets and even have publicity divisions to work especially with them, the fanboy effect is most pronounced for smaller-budget releases like Smith’s.