And if you want to call me a Mercer fanboy - Hell yeah, I'm a huge Fan Man. As I said - best DM I've seen in 40+ years. I've stolen a lot from him, including how to help clueless players without insulting them, how to add drama, how to use silence as a tool, etc...
(This is gonna git a little rambly, but it'll have a positive ending! I swear!)
I would never call you that. And anyone who did should be ignored. I positively think that for his style of play that he is a fantastic DM. I also think that, quite possibly, his style of play is one that you would (and obviously do) enjoy. To that I say: "To Infinity and Beyond!!"
Myself, I don't find him particularly engaging. Not anymore so than many other GMs/DMs I've had over the decades. His style of play is not a style that would keep me in focus during the game. As a player, I would find the plethora of voices, etc. to be highly annoying! (Voices like the Mindflayer dude in Season 1 or Kiri in Season 2 had me going: Ok, the cute has worn off. Can we drop it now?)
My style of play is waaay more Adventure Zone than Critical Role. I enjoy the small shots of CR I get from the podcast to and from work. But anything over that 20-30 minutes and I start thinking: Get to the point! Let's go,
let's go,
let's gooooo!
I think that MM and the CR team are a huge boon for D&D. They do an awesome job at highlighting one way of playing the game. And I'll admit that I'm getting more knee-jerkish as time goes by whenever I hear how he's the best DM ever. My first response is usually around "Uh, no. He's ok, but I've seen/had better." I have to rein it waaaaay back and think "Yeah, I guess he is for his way of playing."
What I do find
positively incredibly awesome about Matt Mercer is the podcast/videos/etc. of him saying just about the same thing: That
his way of doing it is
one way and that there are multitudes of ways of doing D&D. So
don't copy him! Find your own groove!
If I had players compare my game to CR, I'd just send 'em to those videos of him and to the Adventure Zone podcasts and go, "yeah, it's gonna be more like that."
I can recall only only one player so far who made a disparaging remark about my game in relation to CR. My response was "you know there is a whole professional production team involved, right?" I think that CR
can set up unrealistic expectations for beginning players, but at least it get people playing!
So, no. I wouldn't call you a Fan Boy/Fan Man. I'd more call you a Dude-Who-Has-Found-Someone-Who-Runs-The-Game-How-He-Loves.
TLDR: I think it's
awesome that you've found someone whose game-style really jams with ya! Go, go, Gadget Copter!
(See! Positive ending!)