Apple has released a new, inexpensive version of the iPhone and they can't sell it because it won't make anyone envious.
I can honestly say that I have never envied anyone for having purchased an Apple product. Now of course, a lot of you Apple people will read that and think either that I have no idea what I'm missing, or that I'm lying, that I really am envious. And that doesn't bother me either. And a lot of you will read that and think I'm lying, or that I just don't understand.
I was walking around in NYC in 1996 with my brother and I saw what looked to me at first to be a line of homeless people waiting outside of a soup kitchen for some grub. But it was a strange-looking group of homeless people, different from most homeless: just as dirty and scruffy and haphazardly-dressed, but almost all of this group were white and overweight. Then I realized that they weren't homeless people waiting for food, they were idiots waiting in line for $10 tickets for that evening's performance of Rent. (Tickets for Broadways shows were normally $50 or so and up at the time, and popular shows were sold out way in advance, but because Rent was so "hip," they always held a certain number of tickets for each show, to be given to whomever had gotten in line for them early enough and paid $10. Which meant that every day people were camping out in line in front of the theatre overnight. How "bohemian," eh? I don't know if or how scalping of those $10 tickets was prevented, and you know what? Don't care about that either.) I'm certain, I don't have any actual stats but I mean I just know, that many of those douchebags in line for the $10 Rent tickets have been networking since then as mid-level execs at Starbuck's or Trader Joe's and now stand in line at the Apple Stores and have iPhones. And will never believe that someone like me feels sorry for them or understand why I would, because they're idiots and there's a whole lot of things they will never understand. Like how Steve Jobs understood how many people are idiots and still have massive amounts of disposable income, and understood how to organize them into massive lemming-like herds consumed with desire to buy anything he dangled in front of them.
As long as it was unreasonably expensive.
haha. I wonder how many people get your writing. I like it. I work in retail, I see a multiplicity of idiots a day, but its ok. A professor of mine called my working there kierkegaard(ian).
ReplyDeleteI am a philosophical writer with a sarcastic streak, but my writings are straight to the point and exhibit a strength that few possess. I think you would like it, (or hate it), who knows. Here's the link.
http://afoolsphilosophy.blogspot.com
Thank you very much for your kind comment. I wonder too how many people get me, but I can't worry about it when I write. When he was just in his early 20's, Bob Dylan wrote a profound line in one of his songs: "I try my best to be just like I am." That's a very good way to try to live. I can't say I always live up to that principle, but I sometimes come closer in my blog than elsewhere. I will check out yr blog.
DeleteSteven--thanks for this excellent piece!
ReplyDeleteI, too, never understood the Cult of Apple. Somehow, the isheep really believe they are better than everyone else. Not to say that ALL Apple owners are like that, but so many are that it's become a joke outside of their cult. Being tied to an ecosystem as tight as Apple's is truly cult-like and those who follow it cannot see what everyone else does--that they are being taken for their money. How can one even compare a Galaxy S4, an LG G2, Nexus, etc. to the iphone 5S? Head-to-head, there is such a huge difference in function and productivity that the iphone is not much more than a toy comparatively. Yet many "expert" tech reviews give the itoy a rating as high or higher than the aforementioned phones, putting form over function as an attribute worthy of an extra point or two. An aluminum back gives it a "polished, high-end look and feel". As if that really matters--only a fool would not enclose their expensive phone in a PLASTIC protective case--so who really cares about or even sees an aluminum back? And the latest biggest marketing ploy of all-- a 64 bit processor with 1 GB ram!
And now Tesla is duplicating Apple cult model, except that with Tesla it's even more extreme, and Elon Musk's plundering of the company while claiming to be "a friend of mankind" is even more blatant and obvious than Steve Jobs' was. Scientology is similar: the victims pay and pay and pay, and defend the cult fiercely, and sneer at the rest of the world.
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