Slashdot Mirror
Justin Long No Longer A Mac
david.emery writes "Wired is reporting that Apple will be replacing Justin Long as its 'Mac' in their 'I'm a Mac/I'm a PC' ad campaign. John Hodgman, the personification of the PC, is reportedly shooting new commercials." From the article: "Even people who hate the campaign find their core idea compelling enough to endlessly satirize the series on YouTube. The one enduring criticism of the ads is that John Hodgman's PC is funnier and more likable than Justin Long's sleazy hipster doofus Mac. (just what was he saying to that hot new camera from Japan?) Hodgman is a riot (just read "The Areas of My Expertise" if you don't believe me), but I'm not sure how the new series of ads goes on from here. Is there a new Mac? Does Hodgman become the Mac?"
Uhh, you judge a person by what they are wearing? You must be a Mac user.
How we know is more important than what we know.
This has to be the most asinine post I've ever seen in my life.
Yeah, obviously the whole concept of judging a person by their clothing being, I don't know, shallow hasn't occured to you guys. But hey, you're Mac users, you can't even get paste the "Ohh, shiny" phase.
How we know is more important than what we know.
No, you are not living in some bizzaro world. Most people hate these commercials. But no, Apple are not shooting themselves in the foot. Your reaction is exactly what Cupertino is trying to produce, or rather, its exactly half of what they are trying to produce.
The message is supposed to do two things: encourage the faithful and irritate those outside the cult. It is necessary to irritate those outside, so that they can express their irritation. This will increase the sense that the faithful have that they are a superior minority under attack by yahoos. But the faithful are told how much better they are than their attackers. The message is that the number of the elect is small, that everyone outside their number is silly and ignorant, and probably low class rednecks in addition.
The problem with this as a marketing approach is the requirements it starts to place on the product itself. The Mini had to be different in some way physically. The dysfunctional form factor and terrible price performance ratio is a consequence. But, you walk into a store, and it is different. The all-in-one design is dysfunctional - it leads to replacement not upgrading and you are always throwing out perfectly good screens. But it is different. And you can then argue that people who don't see the great superiority of the designs are just idiots, which will irritate them, and keep the cycle going.
Apple is a terrible company, not because of the products, not even because of DRM, not because of overpricing, but because of the way it engages in cult marketing in collusion with the MacFanatics. It has deliberately tried and considerably succeeded in persuading people to have feelings for a company that would be better felt towards something higher, and one of the worst aspects of this strategy is its continual efforts to irritate outsiders. Its as if some tiny church were to continually take out ads portraying all non-members as degenerates. It would certainly cement the devotion of the faithful. But at what cost?
STFU 1337est asshole. Some of us can speak the language, understood the commercials, and still find it funny.