Posted on 02/05/2007 2:17:25 PM PST by Vermonter
I hate Macs
Charlie Brooker Monday February 5, 2007 The Guardian
Unless you have been walking around with your eyes closed, and your head encased in a block of concrete, with a blindfold tied round it, in the dark - unless you have been doing that, you surely can't have failed to notice the current Apple Macintosh campaign starring David Mitchell and Robert Webb, 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 (after all, within these very brackets I'm promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), there is something infuriating about this particular blitz. In the ads, Webb plays a Mac while Mitchell adopts the mantle of a PC. We know this because they say so right at the start of the ad.
"Hello, I'm a Mac," says Webb. "And I'm a PC," adds Mitchell.
They then perform a small comic vignette 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. Mitchell, incidentally, is wearing a nerdy, conservative suit throughout, while Webb is dressed in laid-back contemporary casual wear. This is a subtle way of saying Macs are cool.
(Excerpt) Read more at guardian.co.uk ...
Commie ...
To me the ads are like an episode of Seinfeld. The humor zips right over my head, leaving me wholly unimpressed.
If you're using a third party mouse, go to the manufacturer's website and download the Mac version of their software for that mouse and then set the button/wheel preferences using their software (it should show up in the Mac preferences panel. This hould solve the disappearing cursor problem for you and make the mouse more useful. I personally have the scroll wheel button set to reload a page.
Steve Jobs is an a-shole and a Syrian to boot. ;-)
Of course, that hasn't stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what the ads do to PCs. Besides, that's what we PC owners are like - unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you'll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming.
British dry wit? That's humor. Like the funny kind. Only different.
"The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye."
You sure about that? I am an old lady... about 63, and love my two button Apple mouse! I am left handed, and every other two button mouse I have tried has been too big and two awkward for me to use.
And, just so you know, my sis recently retired from HP (software engineer) and has switched to a Mac after 30 years dealing with PCs. She "hates" to enjoy her iMac so much, by the way...
This week: Charlie watched some episodes of Larry Sanders (on his PC). He played the customised Fawlty Towers map for Counterstrike (on his PC). He listened to the Windows startup jingle every 10 minutes as his PC repeatedly rebooted itself.
Funny.
Have you ever driven a Mini Cooper S? Those suckers are pretty quick, and quite fun.
:')
Oh, most definately sure. I have a background in marketing (work in the broadcasting field) and it is certainly plain to see by these commercials that they believe that the younger crowd would be more apt to buy a Mac than the older crowd (present company excluded, of course ;-)
I'm sure they have marketing guru's much more plugged in than myself, but it seems to me that they are making a mistake by almost alienating a large block of potential customers. The Baby-Boomers (of which I am one) are still the largest block of consumers out there - even as we grow more....refined. :-)
As a matter of fact, I have a 58 year old friend who just got tired of the spyware and virus problems with his old notebook PC so he intentionally crashed the hard drive, threw the system out and bought an Ibook. He loves it!
Who responds to polls? Liberals.
And what do liberals like? Victims.
Which is exactly what PC users are. And since, statistically, 90% +- of the viewers of the ads are PC users, it's logical that they would identify with the PC guy and feel sorry for him, which means the ads are working.
BTW, I think the ads are funnier than hell.
Wow... Nice generalizations there bud.
Was that your rebuttal?
I don't know either, but I have read several anti-Mac rants that list the mouse as a reason not to use it.
Bizarre.
Yea, Apparently im a liberal victim because I use a PC?
If you knew what you were talking about you would know the poll was a viewer group who were polled not phone calls.
I couldnt care less if you used a leapster, a commodore 64, a mac or a pc. I just think generalizing users of certain pcs is indicative of your personality.
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