Every ad I see on TV has a mac user. If there are two users, and one is dumb, the dumb one has a pc, usually an HP by my trained eye. Now mocking HP is absolutely fine. They have the coolest ads and the crappiest computers. But where did this Apple’s are for the smarter person nonsense come from?
If it weren’t an ad for Vehix.com, and one of the worst ads I’ve ever seen at that, I might be offended by the new one where some guy suggests Vehix Tv where you can watch videos, wait, get this, on your computer. I’m glad Mac users have decided to get in on this phenomenon, because now they might be able to join us in watching the movies I try to send them. But wait, Apple is all about quicktime! Great. Too bad anyone who doesn’t want their movie stolen won’t be using that. Of course, Apple doesn’t really care about theft at all, as long as its not their product. But that’s a later post.
I’ll ground my anger in a nice case study from my life. I am a computing assistant, which means when a student’s computer stops working, I fix it. The job ranges from data recovery of dead hard drives to configuring wireless internet settings. In that range is dealing with something called CLabs, a product of CDigix. Since you won’t be able to determine anything at all from the name (except maybe there are bits involved, and possibly the program is in C, or the author’s name starts with C, or it’s a pun because you can See Digix, whatever they are or that is), I will tell you. CLabs is the service the University uses to distribute movies. For instance, in my class on WWI and WWII, I need to watch All Quiet on the Western Front. It’s a great movie but I’m not renting from Blockbuster and I’m certainly not walking all the way over to WHC just to see it. So I’ll download it to my computer and watch it at my leisure. Unless I’m one of the 25% of undergrads here who fell for these ridiculous ads and bought a Mac. Now I can’t watch (or appreciate the good in the world for that matter) and am forced to borrow my friend’s beautiful, sleek and movie-enabled T60. After thanking him (and it will almost certianly be a him, since he wasn’t duped into buying beauty over brains), I can return home with my notebook of quotes that I’ve furiously scribbled for my paper. I hope they’re right cause there is no way to watch the movie again. As as someone who has a move-enabled T60, this is couldn’t be more annoying.
“Sam, can you fix my computer? It doesn’t work”
“What is wrong?”
“It won’t play movies”
…cut out of me trying to understand…
“Oh, CLabs won’t work? Do you have a Mac? And why?”
“How’d you know? Cause they’re pretty!”
“Yeah that’s not gonna work”
“Please?”
“No it’s not my fault. No one in this world can make it work”
“Can I use yours?”
“No…fine. Come by later”
Now many of you are thinking “sweet dude, you get the chicks to come over with computer talk?” and I can’t lie, this exact phenomenon is why I’m a CS major and CA. Still, I’m an angry CS major because people are so gullible.
I might not have explained it well enough. This will help. It’s hilarious:
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