August 22, 2005
apple mafia
Interesting. Shel talks about the time he met Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple back in 1980:
He [Jobs] stared at me for a second then asked me what I did for a living. I stammered that I loved to write, and right now I was working for a PR agency until I could find something meaningful. “My PR flack is Regis McKenna,” he snapped, more than a little impatiently. “Go work for him.”
In fact, that’s exactly what I did. But I never really worked much on the Apple Account. As it turned out, that was a good thing. And I learned something about Jobs that seems to be true all these many years later. He’s much more appealing when he’s standing in front of 500 people than he is close up.
What’s always amusing with posts like this is reading the usual comments left by the “Apple Mafia”:
After you do that, give credit to Jobs for having clairvoyantly spotted a bad writer long years ago. And you’re still so ungracious about the fact that he actually bothered to give you advice on what you should do? Then ask yourself why a man in his position owes *you* the time of the day?
Clairvoyantly? Oh yeah, I forgot, Steve Jobs has supernatural powers as well. Even more reason to worship etc etc.
[SEE ALSO:] “Why I prefer Windows to Macintosh”.
10. When I was in high school, people who were overly into hipster brands were routinely taken behind the bike sheds and savagely pummeled. That is the natural order of things.
Thanks Hugh. I needed this.
Ugh, those comments are pathetic. You and your friend Shel better watch your backs in case some dork driving an Apple logo bedecked Passat tries to run you down.
I think it’s time to repost your “Why I Prefer Windows to Macintosh” entry.
I just did, Amy
RE: Then ask yourself why a man in his position owes *you* the time of the day?
Comments like this always make me laugh on the inside. Jobs is no more special than you or I.
First off, let me just start off by saying that while I’m a fan of Apple products, I’m not particularly a fan of Steve Jobs. It’s hard not to admire the guy’s business ability (Apple’s and Pixar’s successes are *really* difficult to argue against), but even from the early days he’s always struck me as more than just a little bit of a prick.
Then again, it strikes me that this Shel Israel guy walks up to a successful, semi-famous person, fawns all over him, actually gets a response and business tip from the said famous person that — to many folks — could be seen as launching his career, and then *complains* that said person offered the help in a “more than a little impatient” manner. What kind of a lame entitlement society do we live in where everyone thinks they’re owed everyone else’s attention. Get over yourselves kids.
Sort of begs the question of how many people Shel Israel has helped out through the years, how he treats folks who come up to him as he’s walking out of a conference on his way to dinner with his loved ones and ask for help starting their careers, or even how he treats the mailroom staff at work.
Macs (and OS X) are not for everyone, there are plenty of valid reasons to not want to own/use them. Your reasons mostly based on the dislike of trendsters/hipsters and the products they enjoy/endorse. I guess this is the opposite of people who only listen to independent music…
It strikes me as being pretty petty and moronic to rule out Macs just because you don’t like the vast majority of the users, so what? No one’s forcing you to join a Mac User Group or to wear jeans and black turtlenecks. Some of are simply content to use the best tool for the job, which may or may not be a Mac.
I haven’t ruled Mac out. I only said I preferred Windows. But OF COURSE the Mac users infer that to mean “I hate Mac”.
Oh, I must have missed the parts where you enlightened people on the positives of Macs/OS X in between the vitriol.
In that ‘rant’ you gave no opinion to the contrary so it’s sort of natural to assume that you dislike, perhaps even hate, Macs.
I’ve always been pretty strongly anti-apple just because of the (unnecessarily high) price, but I never complained when I got stuck on a Mac at work. Until OS X came along that is. Running 10.0 and 10.1 on anything but the very latest hardware was an experience I’d not wish on anyone, and this was almost the final nail in the coffin for my opinion of Macs. But they’ve tightened things up significantly in the last 2 versions, to the point where I can run 10.3 on an old G3 Pismo powerbook without any noticeable lag (well, except when decompressing MPEG4 video). As for the “Think Different / I’m so creative!” attitude that you get with a lot of the Mac faithful, well… if it wasn’t their computer, it would be their clothes, music, car, hairstyle, brand of coffee, makeup, favorite typeface, etc, etc, etc. So I don’t think you can blame Apple for that. I’d commend them for serving the hipster niche so well, in fact.
I’m a mac user because I hate macs only slightly less than i hate windows.
Here’s why I like Macs:
I used to work as a desktop support tech for an academic institution, half of a staff of 2 for the 300-person institution’s tech support. 80% of our users were on Macs, and 20% of our users were on Windows. Yet, the Windows users used 80% of our time and resources.
The second reason is, that superior attitude to scorn? It leads to better software. Poorly-written, poorly-designed software doesn’t survive on the Mac; the quality standards are that much higher. There are so many more programs I have on my Mac at work that I wish I could run on my Windows box at home than vise-versa. I can supply a list if you’d like.
I type this from a little Athlon PC I built myself a year ago for $500; but, were I in the same position now, I’d probably buy a Mini. Why? The design of a Mac feels like somebody actually GIVES A SHIT about how the thing works. I have never picked that up from my PC.
Am I a hipster? I ride public transit, I shop at Mervyns and Trader Joe’s, I get a buzz-cut, and my favorite typeface is a self-customized cleaned-up version of a $30 shareware face I got off of myfonts.
Here’s what I’m not doing: I’m not buying $4000 suits. I don’t buy alchohol. I’m not giving a shit about what Steve Jobs does, so long as it doesn’t affect Mac quality standards. Am I a hipster? You seem to think I am, soley because of the computer I prefer to drive, even when that decision is made for the same reason people choose to buy $4000 suits.
Thank you, Hugh, for proving how shallow even otherwise deep thinkers like you can be.
Another Reason To Dislike Apple
So, aside from their strong-arm legal tactics ,
Hey Matt,
“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
–William Shakespeare
So let me get this straight.
A self-righteous prick, with an overdeveloped sense of entitlement, grouses about the fact that a very busy CEO of a famous company actually bothers to give him the time of day, but doesn’t stop to suck his c – . So the self righteous prick is, understandably, a little upset.
A second self-righteous prick, with delusions of teh Ans0rz for all things marketing, has a hard on/off for the company of the said CEO and quotes the biased record of this exchange (which cannot in any way be substantiated) with a flame-baity blog troll. This serves to further engorge the previously mentioned hard on (by suckering readers into making emotionally charged comments, which can be “cleverly” dismissed with quotations.)
The company in question, has enjoyed a recent resurgence of attention and financial success by selling to its dedicated core customer base, and expanding its customer base via product development and design, clever – but traditional – television and print advertising, slick packaging, and a similarly slick retail presence. This flies in the face of the unified conversational theory of blogging as the new world order of taggable post-dot-bomb clue-less-train advertising, thus agitating the hard on, necessitating this post.
Did I miss anything?
I think you missed the bit about proving my point, Michael.
Wow, you really walked into that one.
Oh. Yeah. I took the bait. It’s fun.
There are a few internets discussions that will never die:
1. I love/hate macs
2. He/She/It is a nazi
3. I hate those popular girls/boys in high school/college/in my dorm/ at work.
It’s a matter of duty to keep them going
I will offer as a counter point — would it be useful for someone in your line of work to discern what is it that makes the Mac fanboi so fanatical?
I mean if some one in advertising could distill that into it’s pure form and apply it…wouldn’t that be. I don’t know. Useful?
Apple is such a symbol for personal empowerment for some folk, so when they see it being attacked, they see their own personal power being attacked.
Lots of projection going on, with both Windows and Mac. Not all of it is healthy.
This is true of anything people feel passionate about.
The mac/windows/linux thing is easy to poke fun at — because on the surface it seems silly. But if you think about it. People and companies invest a lot of money and time into these dumb little boxes, why shouldn’t someone take it personally?
Think about the origins of this post…the original quoted blog entry.
Replace “Steve Jobs” with any other cultural figure that people have strong feelings about. George Bush, Tony Blair, Paris Hilton, Jesus (no relation) Make a few snotty remarks about these folks (or what they represent) and see what sort of reaction you get.
If it weren’t the Apple Mafia, it would have been the Paris Hilton Gestapo. (or something)
This post and your earlier post (“10 reasons I prefer Windows”) is every bit as impassioned. Just in the opposite direction.
I think it’s only fair to point out there’s a little pot-kettle black calling.
But more importantly…aren’t the crazy mac fanbois participating in the very same kind of conversation that you talk about when wine or suit blogging?
If not…how is it different?
Who said it was different? Both the suit and the wine biz attract their fair share of issue-infested saddo’s.
Part of the job is keeping them at arm’s length
No one said it was different. I assumed a level of clinical disinterestedness.
Keeping at arm’s length is probably wise, but not enough. It’s contagious.
Hm. Let me just step back and point out something here — it appears that this post (and Shel Israel’s) have accomplished their goal: to wit — these past few days have probably seen more traffic at these two sites than in the past month. I’m of the opinion that many who post on controversial topics (attack Mac/Windows/FreeBSD/George Bush/Hillary Clinton/Muslim Fundamentalists/Flying Spaghetti Monster) aren’t really bothered by the controversy they’re certain to generate, since it drives traffic to their sites. I’m sure in some cases it’s part of the original intent.
“Protest too much” indeed, nacht?
Interesting how many folks confuse Jobs with Apple. Not a great long-term prospect for Apple if
everyone does. Anyway, I’ve heard Jobs has an impatient holier-than-thou streak. Although I shudder to think what people that met me five years ago say about me; I’m a completely different person. And I’m still a work in progress. I was probably more self-absorbed than Jobs. People change. I truly sense that in Job’s recent commencement speech.
“Sort of begs the question of how many people Shel Israel has helped out through the years…”
I’ll come to the defense. I first noticed Shel as one of the few PR bloggers that was helping to bring attention to tsunami relief efforts. Then he wrote a post a few months back trying to find a friend of a friend that was lost in the Vancouver mountains. (We emailed offline about his quest to find him too.) At the BlogBusinessSummit Shel went out of his way to introduce me (with absolutely no benefit to himself) to other PR executives. He’s really an extraordinarily compassionate person.
Ok now, I posted this over at his site, and I’m putting it here as well. Just my 2 cents. I think this is a big non-issue.
“Honestly man, let’s review the story:
You go up to someone who’s likely constantly hounded by folks he doesn’t know who want one thing or another from him.
You ask him for a job, which HE GIVES YOU ON THE SPOT!
And you think he’s ungracious because he doesn’t take the time to sit down and have a beer with you?
Sounds like hubris to me.”