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{i hate macs} alex bitz Unless you have been running around with your eyes shut, and your head in a block of cement, with a blindfold tied around it, in the dark - unless you have been doing that, you surely can't have failed to notice the current Apple campaign starring John Hodgman and Justin Long, which has taken over magazines, newspapers and the internet in a series of brutal coordinated attacks aimed at causing massive loss of resistance. While I don't have anything against shameless promotion per se, there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Long plays a Mac while Hodgman adopts the mantle of a PC. "Hello, I'm a Mac," says Long. "And I'm a PC," adds Hodgman. They then perform a small comic characterization aimed at highlighting the differences between the two computers. So in one, the PC has a "nasty virus" that makes him sneeze like a plague victim; in another, he keeps freezing up and having to reboot. This is a subtle way of saying PCs are unreliable. Hodgman, incidentally, is wearing a nerdy, conservative suit throughout, while Long is dressed in laid-back contemporary casual wear. This is a subtle way of saying Macs are cool. This is far from my opinion. I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate people who use Macs. I even hate people who don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did. I've hated Apple computers ever since Mrs. Bailey's 3rd grade computer class where I sat in front of an Apple II day in and day out to learn how to type. Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centers for adults; computers for those too nervous to learn how proper computers work; computers for people who earnestly believe in feng shui. Bold? Yeah... but it's time it came out. You can build your own PC from scratch and then customize it into oblivion – hell you can even put Linux on it if you want or even boot from Knoppix. You get what you get when you buy a Mac. PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, "I hate Macs", and then I think, "Why does this rubbish aspirational ornament only have one mouse button?" Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb. If the ads were really honest, Long would be standing there with one arm, struggling to open a packet of peanuts while Hodgman effortlessly tore his apart with both hands. But then, if the ads were really honest, Long would be dressed in unbelievably po-faced avant-garde clothing with a gigantic glowing apple on his back with an iPod gleaming out of his pants pocket (my rant of my dislike towards iPods is sure to follow – and yes I have an iPod) and possibly a new Motorola Razr in the other pocket. And instead of conducting a proper conversation, he would be repeatedly congratulating himself for looking so cool, and banging on about how he was going to use his new laptop to write a novel or edit a video, without ever getting around to doing it, like a mediocre idiot. Cue 10 years of nasal moaning from Mac-likers who profess to like Macs not because they are fashionable, but because "they are just better". Mac owners often sneer that kind of defense back at you when you mock their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so, you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but feels vaguely significant and creative each time they gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more deftly constructed and wittily argued their defense, the more terrified and wounded they secretly are. Bold? Once again, yeah... but it's time it came out. Aside from crowing about sartorial differences, the adverts also make a big deal about PCs being associated with "work stuff" (Boo! Offices! Boo!), as opposed to Macs, which are apparently better at "fun stuff". How insecure is that? And how inaccurate? Better at "fun stuff", my ass. The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring video game of all time, a plodding, dismal "adventure" in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modeled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-'em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac's relationship with "fun". Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it perpetuates the notion that consumers somehow "define themselves" with the technology they choose. If you truly believe you need to pick a computer, an MP3 player, or even a mobile phone that "says something" about your personality, don't bother... you don't have a personality. A mental illness, maybe - but not a personality. Of course, that hasn't stopped me telling off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalizations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. I have plenty of reasons I hate Macs and plenty of other issues with Macs that are not listed here. But I'll only leave you with the main reason that I do not and will not ever own a Mac in my lifetime: Apple locks down their computers and their software to perpetuate a cycle of forced hardware obsolescence. Apple execs have decided that they won't release OSX to anyone, like every other operating system in the world is, because they want to sell you more hardware without giving you an easy and affordable upgrade option. Once you buy a Mac you are stuck with what you get. Want to upgrade your OS so that you can keep up with the latest hardware? Too bad, you have to buy a whole new Mac. You can only buy a brand new Mac that costs thousands of dollars. Suddenly the high Vista price doesn't seem so bad does it? Macs are already way overpriced for what you get. For the price of a new Mac I can build a computer that will blow any similar priced Mac out of the water. Apple execs know this and they don't care because they have a huge brand image. But I guess looking cool means more to people than it ever will to me. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming. |
