Charlie Brooker on Mac Fanboys

I’m a full-on Windows user. Not because I think it’s particularly brilliant, but just because – for me – it works. We use it in the lab, I use it at home, my friends use it and my family use it.
And yes, occasionally there are flaws and stuff, but (literally) 99.9% of the time, it works.
Which beats my car, my swimming pool pump and my burglar alarm – to name but a few.

Another reason that I use Windows rather than a Mac, is Mac users’ constant and nauseating insistence that I must use Mac products if I want to be a “real” computer user. And yes, perhaps if I was a silver Loerie-winning, arty-farty Ad Wizard or a graphic designer or something, then maybe it would suit me to use a Mac. But I’m not, and it doesn’t.
So why would I want to shell out 2½ times the money for a product that I don’t want and I don’t need? Because it looks nice? Because it will make me appear “trendy”? Big wow.

The Guardian’s Charlie Brooker knows exactly what I’m on about and sums up everything I want to say in the first two paragraphs of his piece on this issue – the rest is certainly worth a read as well.

I admit it: I’m a bigot. A hopeless bigot at that: I know my particular prejudice is absurd, but I just can’t control it. It’s Apple. I don’t like Apple products. And the better-designed and more ubiquitous they become, the more I dislike them. I blame the customers. Awful people. Awful. Stop showing me your iPhone. Stop stroking your Macbook. Stop telling me to get one.

Seriously, stop it. I don’t care if Mac stuff is better. I don’t care if Mac stuff is cool. I don’t care if every Mac product comes equipped a magic button on the side that causes it to piddle gold coins and resurrect the dead and make holographic unicorns dance inside your head. I’m not buying one, so shut up and go home. Go back to your house. I know, you’ve got an iHouse. The walls are brushed aluminum. There’s a glowing Apple logo on the roof. And you love it there. You absolute MONSTER.

And he’s right, because the only people that this issue really matters to is the Mac Fanboys. If it mattered to me, I’d do something about it. But it doesn’t, so I haven’t and I won’t.
When I’m at a braai enjoying a drink, I don’t expect someone to repeatedly badger me about my choice of beer; telling me how their imported-from-Tibet Lèopard du neige bèvèragè is made with water from Himalayan glaciers, which is then crystal-filtered through the Dalai Lama’s undergrunties. I like my Black Label – I don’t need your stupidly expensive alternative.

As Marcus Brigstocke quipped at the recent Edinburgh Festival:

To the people who’ve got iPhones: you just bought one, you didn’t invent it!

All of which makes tweets like this, comparing that gadget to the achievements of space travel and automotive vehicles, seem a little absurd. Because it’s just a mobile phone, with a dodgy camera, prone to occasionally exploding – even if it has that annoying little fruity symbol on it. 

So Charlie Brooker is right. Microsoft Windows (in whatever guise) might not be the best product ever created, but it generally does what it is supposed to do and it generally does it very well.
Is Mac better? Maybe for you Mac Fanboys.

But then, as Brooker says: “I don’t care if you’re right. I just want you to die.”

9 thoughts on “Charlie Brooker on Mac Fanboys

  1. I must admit, I couldn’t suppress a huge smile when I came across that article.

    He’s hit the nail right on the head: Apple products may be beautifully designed and ergonomically whatsoever and blah, blah, blah; but the evangelical enthusiasm of “Mac Fanboys” makes me about as likely to buy Apple products as I am likely to become a Jehovah’s Witness.

    There’s something very un-English about such unbridled enthusiasm. What’s wrong with our usual mild sarcasm and understatement?

    And, yes, I know I can sometimes sound a little evangelical in my admiration for Linux … but I do try to keep it under control, honest 🙂
    .-= Ro´s last blog ..Slightly Geeky Poll: How Do You Do It? =-.

  2. Ro > You know, maybe you have something.
    Whereas Microsoft is (exlusively) for the masses and Linux is (exclusively) for g33ks, Apple kind of fall into the middle ground. Maybe the g33ks are trying to tell the masses what they should be doing.

    We’re not listening. So be quiet.

  3. Glad that I got a link 🙂
    Don’t really love my iPhone much & publicly knock it all the time, but you have to admire the paradigm shift that it has induced on its users & its competition to consume data/information/the web differently.

    Not really the point of your article though.
    .-= DChetty´s last blog ..HTC Hero in South Africa! =-.

  4. Ro > The mass market is quite happy where it it, thank you.

    DChetty > I agree with what you say. But there are other smartphones out there. A lot of them that do the same (and more) than the iPhone.

  5. @6000 – I agree and this is why I use a Blackberry, Nokia N97, iPhone and a HTC Dream. They all offer me different experiences & each have their own Achilles heel.

    While I hate my iPhone, I have to recognise that it was solely responsible for revolutionising the mobility of the web. The 20 kajillion apps that sit in the AppStore with the soulless purpose of making farting noises is not the point. It is the fact that it is now possible to stand in the line to buy a movie ticket & when teh numbskull behind the counter books the wrong seat for someone in front of you and needs to figure out how to cancel a transaction, you can whip out your cellphone and purchase the ticket yourself!
    .-= DChetty´s last blog ..HTC Hero in South Africa! =-.

  6. Bought my first ever Mac product about a month ago. I wanted a smart phone for work, so it ended up being the iPhone. It was a toss-up between the Nokia N97, Blackberry and iPhone. We use Novell Groupwise for email, calendar, etc and it is supported on iPhone and Blackberry and as my boss’ Berry crashes all the time, I went with the iPhone.
    Not a bad phone, just a pity it can’t multi task (unless you jailbreak it apparently).
    .-= Delboy´s last blog ..iSnack an iFail –> Vote now! =-.

  7. DChetty > I think I would rather just cope with the lack of functionality. Exactly how “mobile” are you? (And how much does it cost?)

    Delboy > Why not just break it?

    Mrs 6k > You’re not that nerdy.

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