Pat's the kind of fake nerd you can spot a mile away. We all have our niche interests, and we all can sniff out the ones who aren't there genuinely
. I didn't give a shit about Lord of the Rings before the movies came out, but when they did I had a friend who was a life-long fan--read all Tolkien's posthumous works, knew his shit chapter and verse, the real deal--and got me just as excited for this movie as he was. I watched the first movie while reading the book and it sucked me in. I was curious about the story and the world in which it took place, so I wanted to learn whatever I could, however I could. Since then I've read the books at least twice, along with the appendices, and the Silmarillion, just because I cared enough to want to know about it for its own sake.
So, I know what it's like to be a newer fan of something as opposed to a fake fan pandering for clout like Pat and his ilk. A real new fan has questions; a fake fan has answers, most of which come from Wikipedia after they finished watching Thor: Love and Lightning.