Whether you’re an iPerson or a PC user, you have to admit that Mac’s marketing is solidly beta. Their spokesperson is the know-it-all perpetual teen, Justin Long–a stand-in for every art nerd who’s ever been shoved in a locker.
A recent CNN column mocks Droid for actually marketing directly to men.
http://brainstormtech.blogs.fortune.cnn.com/2009/12/04/ad-wars-droid-manly-iphone-girly/
Earlier commercials had appealed to the fragile male ego with icons of masculinity: stealth bombers, heavyweight fighters, rock-crushing machinery.
Is this how we talk about men now?
I have an iPod, and I have to admit that iPhones are technological marvels. I’ve never considered buying a Mac for home computing simply because they are so much more expensive that I could throw out three PCs before I matched the base price of a Mac with the same capabilities. They’re impressive, but so are sports cars. They’re just out my price range.
But another big turn-off for me has always been Mac’s neutered marketing, and the cutesy, art-fag vibe in their stores.
Isn’t it about time that someone figured out that the majority of men actually don’t identify with Justin Long?
I’ll hold on to my crappy cell phone until my contract is up, but I gotta say…those new commercials kinda made me want to buy a Droid.
{ 106 comments… read them below or add one }
I wouldn’t be so optimistic. Motorola is a large corporation that no doubt employs an army of consultants, some of whom presumably reported, “Hey guys, the good ol’ boy ad market is less saturated.” Then, the stampede. I figure that’s about it, really.
Better to capture the lion’s share of one demographic than to achieve parity with others in a different demographic.
Do remember that Motorola’s bestselling device is the pink Razor; their niche-market consultants aren’t so shabby.
–
Disclaimer: I don’t watch any TV except football, so I have never actually seen an Apple or Droid ad, save those on billboards.
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I have been a Mac user for years and I feel the same way about those adverts. The puerile “Windoze is 4 nerdz lolz” slant of them annoys me. It annoys me that as a Mac user (and fan, not fanboy) I am associated with that limp-wristed douche-in-jeans character.
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Also, as I conjectured here, the intersection between “manly men” and “voracious consumers of electronic gadgetry” is, in all likelihood, quite small.
The stealth jets and heavyweight fighters are probably aimed more at semi-autistic gamers (to whom those are entities that exist in video games, rather than in real life) than at men who would have anything to do with real stealth jets or heavyweight bouts.
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I agree with Gusto. I’ve been on Macs pretty much since 1985, but there’s no doubt that the marketing and product design is very skewed towards women and artsy men. Part of what happened there was that Apple successfully carved out a niche in the entertainment industry, in part by allying with software producers who make high end move software. And of course that kind of creative industry is dominated by creative types, and disproportionately female. The real breakthrough, though, was when they moved towards the iPod and the newer lines of Apple laptops around 8 or so years ago. There was clearly an idea to “make them cute”. And it worked to beat the band. So they aren’t messing with a good thing.
I use a Mac Book Pro, which, due to its metallic look, isn’t really “feminine” looking. But I do agree that a lot of the products that Apple makes — particularly the pink iPods and nanos, and to a lesser extent the iPhone (which strikes me as more neutral) — are skewed female, with the idea that if they can become the “female friendly device maker”, that’s a huge and lucrative market for them. I think we have to remember that the dork vs. artsy dude adverts are probably mostly aimed at women. Apple knows as well as anyone else that most of the serious male computer users are going to use PCs because they are cheaper and easier to manipulate than Apple’s machines are. Apple is more of a plug and play thing, which is what many women prefer precisely because they are much less likely than men are, on average, to want to get inside their machine and customize it. So Apple deliberately goes for the female market, and one way to do that well is to associate PCs with male dorks, because as we know women loathe male dorks even more than men do (that is, there is a good market in gadgets to be made from male dorks, but since PC makers already have the dork market, Apple decided to tee-off on dorks in its advertising to attract a market that is less interested in having customized PCs: women).
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the mac ads will be effective. i have to admit they are somewhat funny, especially the one showing the PC guy in various costumes from the 80s, 90s, etc.
but yes, macs try so hard to be hip. i tend to rebel against hip because people usually have to try to be that way – which i find stupid. i’ll keep my cheap PC until such a time that my pr0n use blows a circuit and i have to buy a new one.
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Fucking shit, that guy (Justin Long) is 31 years old? Jesus.
About Apple, it is the company that used the hate against Microsoft for publicity and distracting their employees of the fact that they exploit them for all their worth. Basically, they are a piece of shit company. Always been, always will.
Let’s see, having to buy a computer 3 times more expensive/having to take it to an overpriced tech service every time that it breaks or buying a computer when I can buy the piece and paying less for changing it or doing it myself. Such a hard decision. Besides, almost all software and hardware companies go for Windows.
There’s also Linux, but is oriented to design aka you need to like having to insert commands in the Terminal directly because is an anarchy without support. Being half mad helps. Or being in a company with plenty of computers and not wanting to pay 200-300 $ each for software/ having a copyright lawsue because companies are visible.
Finally, Apple store helps to sell iPhones to people that don’t need to show off, (and its a platform for one-person team of developers) but the contract between Apple and the third-party developers is not very good because they ban what they don’t like.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Am_Rich
http://blogs.pcworld.com/staffblog/archives/007748.html
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“Earlier commercials had appealed to the fragile male ego with icons of masculinity”
If icons intended to appeal to men are to boost and protect our fragile ego’s, then what about all of those products with overt feminine design, coloring/artwork, and advertising. Is that appealing to fragile female ego’s as well, or is it “empowering” for women?
On a similar note – if I don’t buy underwear with lace, flowers, or cute kittens on them, does that mean I suffering from a fragile male ego? I haven’t found any underwear with stealth bombers, heavyweight fighters, or rock-crushing machinery. If we men have such fragile ego’s, shouldn’t we be marketed underwear designed to bolster those ego’s? Is Fruit-of-the-Loom missing a huge marketing potential? If it were true that we suffered en-mass from fragile ego’s, wouldn’t we all rush right out and buy underwear emblazoned with missiles, monster trucks, and other such symbols of power and prowess?
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I was a Mac user from 1984 to 1999 and again since 2007. Maybe the original purchase by my father had something to do with the advertising (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R706isyDrqI) but I’ve stuck with ‘em because they’ve simply been more reliable than PCs.
I must admit to being turned off by their recent advertising — but I’m more turned off my my work PCs’ performance.
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So far, my Droid’s pretty awesome
I think the imagery is really more to appeal to the “doing” part of Men. We solve problems, we don’t sit around wondering about how things make us “FEEEEEL”.
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I started off using windows 98 in 1997. used MS for about 10 years, untill 2006, when I started looking at linux and open source.
I was attracted first of all by it being free. I then read the first few chapters of a book which explained the whole philosophy behind open source, and that people/programmers give their work and effort away free, for anyone else to use and modify if they want to. Its the way human beings should be working imo. co-operation. the model may not create new technologys as quickly as closed source Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, etc, but its getting there (and actually, open source can be innovative too).
I now have a fully functional desktop system tailored exactly how I like it. Instead of 5 mouse clicks to perform a task, I can do it in 1, with a little shell scripting, which is not difficult at all. It has taken me 3-4 years of effort to get to this point, but its been worth it, because I no longer have to deal with MS (poor, virus riddled system) or Apple (expensive).
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Guys,
Macs are too expensive for my taste too. Yeah, they’re secure, but so is a PC using Linux. Gee, what should I buy? Should I pay 2-3 times what I would for a PC and support a company that bashes men and has a leftist orientation? Or, should I get a PC, save money, and install Linux on it? Gee, such a tough decision-not! A PC using Linux is as solid and secure as a Mac any day of the week…
MarkyMark
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Yeah but what you guys aren’t realizing is this: Apple took a look at the market, saw that the PC market is saturated with low margin stuff, and decided to make machines that do not cater to PC enthusiasts. In other words, yes Macs are expensive and less customizable and so on — but they aren’t marketing them to guys like you. They’re marketing them to (1) women and (2) guys who are not computer enthusiasts. The strategy has worked pretty well, because it provides Apple with much lower volume, but much higher margin, revenue. And they’ve leveraged their success with iPods and iPhones (which are both volume and margin based revenue) to sell Macs, too.
So, yeah, for a PC enthusiast type guy a Mac would be a very, very odd choice. But they’re going after a different market, and they’ve done a pretty good job at that, frankly, even in a down economy.
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I like Macs. I am typing this on a Mac right now. As a developer, I can say that TextMate is one of the nicest text editors around, and works well with CyberDuck FTP client to remotely edit files. Better than vi on an ssh terminal. Linux does not have anything as easy as that. The Sequel Pro app for managing MySQL on Macs is also superb, and beats the Linux tools. Macs combine ease of use, with some serious power tools, and the ability to run tons of open source software with MacPorts or Fink.
But yeah, Mac Laptops suck, break a lot, run notoriously hot (as bad or worse than Toshibas) and are terribly overpriced. You can run Linux on Windows a lot cheaper (and use Mac4Lin Gnome themes to make it look like a Mac) or *cough*OSX86Project*cough* if you want.
BUT … that being said, the Apple Stores in the last few years have serious switched. Up through say, 2006-2007, they were about 50-50 the arty, sorta metrosexual kind of alternative guy, and women. Now, go into any Apple Store and it’s almost entirely women. Almost no men whatsoever. As clerks or customers. It was a big surprise. Lots of business too. Apples are definitely a status thing. Women respond to that.
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Nova,
My brother and SIL are both in Apple’s target demographics. Both of them have Macs. My SIL is female (duh), while my brother is a VP too busy for his own good. The SIL wants something user friendly because she’s a chick, while my brother just wants something that works because of his BUSY schedule. For their own reasons, they both want and need a computer that is ‘plug & play’. The Mac gives them what they need and want. I’d say that their exactly the customers that Apple wants.
While they have the kind of money to purchase a Mac, I don’t; it’s either use a PC or use nothing at all in my case. Even if I had the money though, I’d still go with a PC, because it offers more value for less money. And, I know enough to put Linux on a PC, thus giving me the security benefits of a Mac, along with the advantages of a PC. For me, the decision is a ‘no-brainer’. Then again, I’m not Apple’s dream customer…
MarkyMark
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I never go to Mac stores, and I’m a Mac enthusiast for the reasons you pointed out above. I’ve found I can simply order what I need online for cheaper. Some of the aftermarket stuff for Macs is surprisingly good. As for Linux, I’d definitely use it before Windows, but it is a lot easier to use a Mac for dev work. For hardware hacks, OTOH…
How do you like TextMate compared to BBEdit?
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Yeah they seem to have women cornered in the market.
Remember earlier this year Dell launched that website called “Della” designed to appeal to women? Clearly they were trying to Applify their marketing, and it seems to have flopped. I can’t find the Della site anywhere, but as Whiskey says, the Apple stores are packed with females.
I think they won women over through the other products first — like the pink iPod minis and so on — very feminine looking, “cute” gadgets that doubled as fashion accessories. But they’ve managed to parley the sales of those ~$150 devices into sales of Macs where the margins are quite healthy. That seque was handled pretty well, I think, even though their share of computer enthusiast men remains microscopic beyond things like iPods and iPhones (and even there, more men have CrackBerries I think).
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Apple reminds me of the approach Starbucks took, but on a much smaller scale. Starbucks somehow convinced Americans that drinking frou-frou Euro-style coffee was worth spending 3-4 times the amount per cup. And people bought into that within a very short period of time. Suddenly, the “coffee budgets” of people went through the roof, and as we all know, the primary customers are, and continue to be, women, because Starbucks was, and still is, somewhat hip and trendy, despite having become a mainline brand now.
Are Starbucks coffee products tastier and better than old fashioned slummy American “coffee”? Yes, they are. But are they 3-4 times as good? Probably not. But it became hip and fashionable and trendy and suddenly the company had convinced millions of people to spend, annually, a crapton more on coffee than they ever had before.
Sometimes some people have the ability to spot market opportunities like that and pounce on them. As far as I can tell, while their market segment and specific market dynamics are rather different, the overall strategy of both Apple and Starbucks is very similar, and successful for similar reasons.
Heck, what is more Zeitgeist than seeing a woman sitting in a Starbucks with her overpriced by cute white Mac laptop and some overpriced Starbucks drink?
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Starbucks used to be a good local Seattle coffee outlet before Schulz bought it and turned it into the international monstrosity it has become. Now it tastes like burnt toast.
Because of the weather and many Scandinavians, Seattle has long had a coffee-drinking tradition, so fortunately we have plenty of choices besides Starbucks.
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RE: Mac vs. PC…
A computer is a tool. If it works and you like the way it works and price is no object, you buy the most effective tool you can get. Macs are good computers, no doubt. I have no loyalty to any brand of PC and no particular love for Microsoft. It’s a just a company. It makes software I know how to use from years of working in offices. I know lots of guys who use Macs because they like them or because they started out with them. Whatever.
It’s when Mac users get evangelical (or occasionally snobby) about Macs that I look at their advertising and wonder why I’d want to be associated with the company. Why would I be proud to carry one around. Isn’t that what marketing tries to achieve?
As Novaseeker said, Mac went for cute, hip and for the most part female. And, as far as I’m concerned….they shall reap what they sow. I think Mac is fine with that, and so am I.
Design-wise, to be fair, they are fairly neutral and things like iPods and iPhones can be tricked out with cases that are un-cute or less-cute, so I don’t really see it as much of an actual product design issue.
I just figured I’d post this one for you guys because of CNN’s snatchy, eye-rolling commentary about “men’s fragile egos.” Mac is openly marketing to women and metro/effeminate males, so OF COURSE their competition is going to try to exploit that if they’re going after a male market.
Exactly Jack. Droid’s website is very male — it’s cool! Makes me want to get one — maybe. But it’s refreshing because it’s like the anti-iPhone. Very clever marketing, I think, rather than what Sprint/Palm did with the Pre earlier this year, trying to out-iPhone the iPhone. Droid is saying — “here is an iPhone for guys”.
It’s a cool ad campaign, I think: http://phones.verizonwireless.com/motorola/droid/
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Jack Donovan – “I just figured I’d post this one for you guys because of CNN’s snatchy, eye-rolling commentary about “men’s fragile egos.” Mac is openly marketing to women and metro/effeminate males, so OF COURSE their competition is going to try to exploit that if they’re going after a male market.”
And, one might add, what’s wrong with that?
[Gee! I sort of feel like an interloper here, trying to avoid (yet another) Mac vs. PC vs Linux debate, but that whole "Fragile Male Ego" sh*t is still bugging me.]
Personally, I have far less of an issue with Apple preferentially targeting the female demographic than I do with the likes of CNN denigrating any company that would, in comparable fashion, choose to target the male demographic.
What next, will they start in with the shaming language WRT pickup truck commercials that almost always feature (predominant) men doing, well, manly things with their trucks?
This whole “Fragile Male Ego” line is nothing short of asinine. Frankly, men have for sometime now been getting short-shrift in the realm of advertising – and, we’ve taken it quite well, thank you. We find our gender endlessly portrayed as incompetents and idiots, often so clumsy as to be a danger to all around us, and basically clueless as to the products being marketed. Yet, we shriek and cry for mass boycotts and federal investigations into the injustice. No, we more-often-than-not chuckle along, and buy those very products in spite of their marketing contempt for us.
But, in the midst of all the advertising misandry, along comes a product that dares to address itself squarely to men, and that alone is worthy of a contemptuous essay by CNN?
Well, to be fair, the advertising doesn’t just seek to appeal to what men would like to see in such a product, it actually has the audacity to poke fun at vacuous women, and the way they might use such a product. Still, how is this substantively different than the legions of ads that encourage women to buy a product so as not to be like those idiot men around them (husbands, boyfriends, and co-workers)?
Well, I suppose I should apologize for interrupting the flow of this Mac/PC/Linux debate; and, I’d add that Apple’s female-centric approach, in and of itself, would not deter me from purchasing more of their products. In fact, I’ve heard some rumors about a mid-sized, all-solid-state, tablet device. Anyone know anything about such a product? Hell, I might even turn myself into one of those idiots camping outside a store if they were to bring such a device to market.
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The name, Philip Elmer-DeWitt, seems to suggest that the author of said article is a male. Now… what was I saying before, about feminism being a (chivalrous) men’s movement?
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I like Textmate a lot more than BBEdit Welmer. For me, more intuitive search/replace with regular expressions (which are a bitch to get to work in Scite).
Nova has a good point on Starbucks, i.e. marketing hip draws women first, then men. The Ipods were key to Apple’s revival. Jobs is a savvy marketer.
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Epoxytocin No. 87 -
Regarding the post you referenced…yeah, you’re probably just too country. At some point in the past few decades electronics became analogous to power tools and cars. Men have been early adopters since the wheel.
Though, yes, there is a certain threshold of extreme nerdiness that separates the true nerd from the guy who wants to “have cool stuff.”
Novaseeker – “Droid’s website is very male — it’s cool! Makes me want to get one — maybe.”
Check out the link you posted, and I’d have to agree. At $200, it’s certainly compelling – especially since we’re already with Verizon (very much like their parental control features – like disabling texting and calling during school hours and overnight. Numerous stories about my children’s misuse behind this), I’m going to be seriously considering one of these when I’m eligible for an upgrade in a few months from now.
And, yes, the web site is cool in a way that guys will be much more likely to appreciate, although even scads of bikini-clad chicks would not convince me to buy any particular product (Personally, I was always a bit offended by advertising that tried to use overt sexuality to sell me. I always felt like they were assuming that I was such an idiot that I would make decisions from below-the-belt.).
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Listening to the original ad posted in that article again. Does anyone else think the voice over sounds suspiciously like Clooney, or is it just me hearing things?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sLDxv9ohH2s&feature=player_embedded
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Apple knows as well as anyone else that most of the serious male computer users are going to use PCs
Huh? Serious computer users — like mathematical physicists, genomics researchers, and startup founders — use Macs because they run Unix *and* Office. They are just clearly superior tools if your daily work involves travel, web development, large datasets and/or ssh’ing into a Linux server on the backend.
The only thing PCs are superior for is gaming. Regarding hardware customization, you do that on the backend (e.g. GPUs, SSL accelerators, extra RAM) — and no one really customizes a laptop much anyway.
Paul Graham wrote about this back in 2005 and it is *even more* true today than it was then. You would be hard pressed to find a single competent person at MIT CS or at YCombinator using a Windows machine.
http://www.paulgraham.com/mac.html
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This does not cancel out the fact that Justin Long is a douche or that Apple marketing is somewhat skewed to women. That said, Long definitely has more game than his PC counterpart in the ads.
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slwerner -
Agreed. Companies should be able to target whomever they want to target. What’s with this guy playing into the “fragile male ego” bullshit.
That’s a cackling point** for women.
Is this guy shaming a company for playing up the masculinity of its product and pointing out the intentional cutesy-ness of its competitor’s product?
**Like a talking point, only for cackling.
I just got my first smart phone this week: a Droid.
I will be the first one to admit that the marketing played a major role in my decision. Considering that Droid, iPhone, and Blackberry all come from reliable manufacturers/programmers [please, tech geeks, I mean that in the broadest sense, and I am not interested in hearing how Google sucks at this or that kind of tech stuff and Apple sucks at this or that other kind of tech stuff... I mean to say that Google and Apple and Verizon and Motorola and AT&T and the other companies involved, for example, are well-established international companies with long histories of making and selling shit that people want] and considering that I am not using my new phone for anything terribly advanced, and that cost per feature was about even for all three, I felt free to buy based on image.
Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think having a Droid literally makes me more manly. That’s idiotic. In fact basing your self-perceptions around your consumerist purchases is decidedly unmanly in my book. But I’d be a fool not to be aware of the subtle cues that your purchases send to other people.
Considering that I regularly take out my phone when getting numbers from girls — and with a smart phone will be using it even more in public for mapping, web searches, etc — I was very keen to avoid Apple’s über-lib, neutered marketing image, not to mention the general, bland “take the soma” pleasantness of their hardware and software aesthetics. The Droid’s really not very different visually from the iPhone. But it’s a bit sharper and harder around the edges. And they’ve positioned themselves as “tougher,” and I am happy to reward that kind of marketing with my hard-earned dollars (again, all else being equal).
By the way, operationally, I am very happy with my purchase. It’s great.
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Huh, and to think, I am still on a $550 Dell PC with Windows XP, I have no cell phone, never looked closely at an i-pod – ever, never have actually even held a Blackberry and could hardly identify one, and believe it or not, I 150% prefer text to watching stupid youtube videos! (I automatically skip links to video, but links to text I will read – also, I despise sites with flashplayer, and immediately back out of them).
Never had a cd player in my car either, since FM Stereo in the city rocks so good.
I’ve become a fuddy duddy.
Whoever woulda thunk it?
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This is absolute nonsense.
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Jack –
I’m going to have to disagree here (but don’t get me wrong — that Epoxy is totally too country). More than a passing interest in electronics is beta. In my experience, being the gina-tingle-chasing, Alpha-male-lusting super-female that I am, the guys I am most attracted to care naught for super sweet techy things. I’m not talking morons who can’t grasp the concept of teh interwebs — no, most of these guys could be decently tech-savvy if they so chose…they just don’t “so choose”. I’m talking guys who don’t mind technology if it’s staring them in the face, but who generally have “better” things to do than lust after shiny toys.
In a total generalization:
Guys who are really interested in technology — betas.
Guys who like to buy shiny things — betas, but trying to be alphas through obtainment of expensive things
Guys who don’t really care — alphas.
Guys who don’t know what a computer is — idiots.
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to me, hyper-masculine marketing is just as obnoxious as ads that employ the tired ‘men-are-bumbling-idiots’. the above example and some beer ads are just dumb and patronizing.
the most effective recent phone ad has been the verizon “there is a map for that” campaign. it takes the tag line of their competitor AT&T, flips it upside down and nails them on their biggest short-coming. the line uses basic logic with a pinch of smart-ass wit. that appeals to my masculine logic sensibilities more than jet fighters and in-your-face attitude.
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It’s important to remember that the iDroidBerry war is just warming up, and the ad mentioned is one specific sales pitch.
Here is another (less macho) ad, also targeting the iPhone:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e52TSXwj774
The iPhone is a product. Android is a platform. There’s a big difference. There will be cute Android phones. There will be rugged Nextel-like Android phones. There will be kid-friendly Android phones.
Android is superior because as a platform, it supports open development, background threading, auto-focus on all models, a lower price-point, MANY points of access for applications, and augmented reality applications IN USE NOW.
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The LIL:
What about guys like nikola tesla? I’m sure he had an obsession over electronics. Is it beta? I dunno, I consider his achievements pretty alpha. Now granted, obsessiveness to an extreme degree like where a guy has 50 PDAs or absolutely needs to have the latest Power Mac is beta behavior because it’s probably compensating for something else in life. That said, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with electronic hobbying. If “not caring” about stuff like computer technology is alpha, though, it makes me not think too highly of alphas.
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Really?
Dude, the Iphone is so ubiquitous that it doesn’t really carry any such connotation anymore. Maybe it’s different where you live (I have no idea where you live), but I see Iphones in the hands of at least 15-20 percent of everyone here.
By comparison, the only people who had cell phones circa 1990 (in the flyover states, at least) were uptight type-A businessaholics and gearheads. Therefore, I’d imagine that cell phones wouldn’t have been thick on the ground on the 1990 bar scene, because they’d have been seen as too try-hard.
But your comment sounds like taking that same objection and transferring it, wholesale, to, say, 1999.
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Interesting. Those ads just struck me as a serious case of sour grapes.
As with other cases of sour grapes, I suppose I’d have felt differently had they only made the pun once, instead of, what, forty thousand times in a single commercial. Verbal irony is an art of precision, and they definitely overshot the target on this one.
Statement of possible extenuating circumstances: I am currently a customer of both of these companies, and I’ve only seen the ad a couple of times (whatever aired during the Boise St. or Florida games).
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Interesting. I’ll admit, I haven’t had a lot of quality time with the Droid. However, you seem to be implying that you saw basically no considerable difference between, at the very least, the iPhone and the Blackberry. Did you try these phones out before you bought one? Because, let’s be honest — anyone who’s tried to do “iPhone stuff” (e.g. surf the web, play with apps) on a Blackberry will find said Blackberry sorely lacking. Likewise, anyone who’s tried to do “Blackberry stuff” (e.g. sync up office mail, type long emails) on an iPhone will find said iPhone sorely lacking. Come on, man.
I’m not some ubertechnerd (although I do write phone reviews for a prominent SF-based tech magazine, so I know that of which I speak), but there are definitely differences between the phones (and, I assume, with the Droid as well) that are significant enough to make one want X over Y.
Saying that Motorola, Apple, and Blackberry are all good, upstanding companies means naught when you want to do something specific with your phone. If you’re really not doing anything “terribly advanced” with your phone, then you’d be an idiot to get a smart phone in the first place — tons of companies will throw you fairly decent camera flip phones for free (with a 2-year contract).
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Yeaah…though, to be fair, I appreciate Verizon sticking it to the sue-happy AT&T.
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Yeah, I have heard the expression “fragile male ego” in different contexts a few times. Is it actually true that the male ego is somehow more fragile than the female one?
In some sense, I think that it could be true.
To use a phrase borrowed from Farrell, women are “genetic celebrities” who have worth to men and society just by existing, because they can procreate. Men, on the other hand, have to somehow prove their worth in (status) competition and be useful, preferably to stand out as exceptional specimens to women.
On mobile phones: I am expecting the Nokia N900 to replace my aging communicator. Guess this could be framed as nepotism.
The LIL: in my experience, all men are more or less interested in technology. To some, the technology just might be social in nature, i.e. the pick up arts.
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Did you really just expand the definition of technology to mean “Game”? What’s great is that you just redefined “technology” to refute an argument where “technology” clearly meant “of the gadgetry type”.
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The LIL -
I’m going to file your comments under “fetish.”
There are people in the game community who think that being an alpha means getting women off first…but that’s a beta perception. Male status is about male hierarchies and women are a subset of that. So what you fantasize about in your “alpha” men might not correspond exactly with what men see in other men.
I think “leader-of-men” alphas are even less likely than Casanova alphas to be interested in technology, at least beyond the level at which it will advance them in the hierarchies you’ve mentioned.
I know many leader-of-men type alphas, and essentially none of them is the least bit interested in technology, outside the direct realm of (a) using it to increase their status or wealth, or (b) using it for very particular application to pursuits that are fundamentally masculine and low-tech (“Hey, now I can bet on college football from the freeway, on my Iphone!”) None. Zero.
Leaders of men usually aren’t innovators, and innovators usually aren’t leaders of men. (This is the reason why bastions of male leadership, such as corporate America and the military, are so hidebound and conservative at times. It’s also the reason why games are won on weird, innovative trick plays by high school teams – and Boise State, with their unconventional tattooed rebel quarterback Zabransky – but not by NFL and major-conference college teams, and especially not by NFL teams captained by leader-of-men type quarterbacks.)
So you’re really not gonna see a lot of gearhead-ness among leaders of men. Sorry man.
Casanova types (“female alphas”), however, include a large complement of rule-breaker/innovator types, who may lap up technological innovations along with … all other innovations.
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I’m unconsciously going to sneak Boise State into all my posts until tomorrow at 4 pacific. Go 48-point spread!
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I’m really tired of this whole Alpha male = NFL quarterback thing.
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Probably true in general, but not always. Some of the most powerful Chinese emperors were technophiles, including the psychopathic Qin Shihuang, who was the first to unify the country. Thomas Jefferson was also a technophile, and Philip II of Spain kept curiosities from all over the Spanish Empire.
And who can fail to mention Bill Gates and Steve Jobs? If these guys aren’t tech geeks, who is?
But the truth is, as you suggest, that innovators don’t make a very good fit in conventional organizations. Therefore you’re more likely to find them as mavericks going it alone.
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The Lil:
Yep, technology as in “the study of or a collection of techniques; a particular technological concept; the body of tools and other implements produced by a given society”.
I wasn’t actually trying to refute anyone’s argument, but to widen the scope of discussion, especially when you yourself limited technology to just gadgets.
Isn’t it great that not everything is meant to be an argument? Relax.
And what is alpha or beta? Frankly, I don’t care that much about such simplistic categories, though they may be useful in some (other) contexts, and I’m sure you could find correlations.
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Indomitable Thoughts:
See generalization.
I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that, either. You’re conflating “alpha” with “good”, which is not necessarily true.
And, honestly, you shouldn’t. Alphas are not the backbone of society. They’re not innovators (and technology is all about innovation). To be fair, there are different definitions of “alpha” floating about — the “casanovas” and the “leaders of men” — in general, neither of these types are innovators or creators of civilization. They’re the social leaders of the pack, interested in the big picture and what the world can do for them — not in what they can do for the world.
SRSLY. 48 points!!! Craze. But maybe not so craze.
I say we bet on West Virginia.
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That last thought was for Epoxy
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welmer,
gates & jobs were hardly leaders of men, so you’re pretty much proving epoxy’s point here, that geek = !alpha
interested in the qin shihuang angle… what tech was he enamored with. teracotta? giant walls?
i.t., if you can think of a better example of purely merit based leader of men, than NFL quarterback, in today’s world where corporate leaders are PC castrati & pols tremble before the female electorat … all ears buddy
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Honestly, I’m not altogether convinced by the word “alpha.” What the hell does it mean? Who’s in charge, I suppose, but that’s a shifting concept and depends upon context in a highly complex society with so many different realms. Seems to me that when you really get down to it, the guy backed up by men with guns is the alpha. That’s all it really comes down to. Nothing more.
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Well, now, maybe one of my homies here at The Spearhead should venture a blog post on the topic?
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Yes, SRSLY…SRSLY.
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Military tech, of course. The terracotta and his extremely elaborate tomb were extensions of that. His ultimate plan was to bring an army with him to hell, so he could look the devil in the face and demand air-conditioning.
He was also really into huge works (like the Great Wall and canals), which involved a lot of technical expertise. And his palace had a lot of gadgets, according to the history.
I’d argue that Jobs has some charisma. Gates, maybe not.
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Jobs has more charisma than Gates, sure. But that doesn’t get him out of geek-territory.
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…Make that uberG33K-territory.
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Nah, Paul Allen and Steve Wozniak occupy higher realms of geekiness. Both Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were big alphas next to those guys.
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Dude, the original discussion was specifically about whether being a gearhead – i.e., passionate about physical gadgets, not ideas-as-technology – is inversely correlated with (either of the two broadly defined categories of) “alpha”. Argument or not, your response was at best obfuscatory, and at worst completely off-topic.
I mean, I still can’t tell which of the following 3 options was your actual point:
(1) Alphas like some “technology”; gadgets are a type of technology; therefore, alphas like gadgets too (dear god, I hope this wasn’t your reasoning)
(2) You agree with me that alphas aren’t gearheads, but you’re mentioning, as a sidebar, that they like “technology” that accomplishes their own ends (i.e., exactly what I already said)
(3) … something else
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Avinguda:
Heh, I just picked that example because I like football. But I like when my arguments are stronger than I originally intended.
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SRSLY?
If we are going to use such reasoning, the chair in my living room is more of an alpha male than…David Alexander (haha…DA jokes). It’s big, black, and manly, and totally stoic.
It is certainly more alpha than Steve Wozniak.
Thus, we can conclude that my chair is the most alphaest of all.
Actually, it’s Epoxy’s chair, which makes it even more TEH ALPHANESS!!!
Okay, you see what I’m getting at, right?
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…and it gets regular lap-dance action, for free, from a certain hot little minx. Even though it’s totally La-Z and just sits around the house all day.
Ok, I’m done.
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Yah, I get it. But I’m still not sure you can comprehend the lofty heights of nerd-dom that those two have attained. In fact, Paul Allen is so beta that despite his billions he was accused of being gay, and then sued for sexual harassment (by a woman) all in one year!
Wozniak is such a geek that he enrolled in UC Berkely under the name “Rocky Raccoon” when he went back to finish his undergrad degree while in his mid-30s.
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Haha, hey I get ya. Yo, the Woz and I, we chill. He lives like five minutes away (…SRSLY). He’s weird-lookin’.
Yes, they are geeks…but so are Jobs and Gates (duh)…and none of them are “leaders-of-men” alpha.
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Bay area, eh? That’s where my folks live (SF). Nice place.
Maybe Jobs and Gates aren’t like Alexander the Great, but from what I’ve heard they command (or used to command) nearly messianic authority in their companies. The world of men is kind of strange like that.
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Welmer –
If Jobs “command[s] messianic authority” now, he sure took the long way to get there.
It’s not every man who can manage to get sacked from the company that he himself started (by Sculley in the eighties). Talk about the exact opposite of a leader of men.
Gates, I don’t know much about.
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Gates was a total slavedriver. He had people work themselves to the bone, and feel privileged to do so. The people I know who worked at MS back in the 80s/90s were in awe of him. I don’t know as much about Jobs, but I do know that when he talks a whole lot of people listen.
The one time I saw Gates in person, though, he was very timid and beta. But that’s because he was trying to disguise himself and when I recognized him he got nervous. He was walking around Pioneer Square in a red windbreaker with the hood over his head and wearing cowboy boots. Pretty funny. A friend of mine used to work in a video store years ago and he said Gates would come in to buy porn all the time. I’ve also heard stories about orgies at his house, and then more orgies at private parties in China when he visited. Wouldn’t surprise me, but I’ve never been that close to such mega wealth and power, so what would I know? The closest I’ve been is rowing a canoe past his house on Lake Washington.
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The trouble is that I find this whole discussion about alphas and tech/gadgets a bit ridiculous, which is why I made the offhand remark. Especially when the terms are not well defined.
Firstly, I think that “a leader of men” type alpha can very well be a gearhead, in the sense that he is interested in technology and recent developments and even knows the ins and outs (or has). For a CEO of a tech company such as Larry Ellison or Jorma Ollila it is not that uncommon). Not to speak of, for example, many professors in tech universities. For alphas in the sense of PUAs the question should be even clearer, because many started as nerdish.
So I am absolutely not ready to categorically say that “alphas are not gearheads”, but I do agree that it is very probably less common. (Of course if you define a gearhead to be a geek… Sorry, don’t know about the connotations of the word gearhead.)
Perhaps this confusion all comes from the American nerd-geek/jock dichotomy which is way less prevalent in Europe, and all the schemas involved.
I know several “alpha” men (in either sense of the term, which have been used in this discussion) who have the latest gadgets and are interested in technology. Naturally this may not apply to all.
Obviously there are normally trade offs involved in how one uses his or her time, which is why the most serious technology enthusiasts are stereotypically seen as socially inept. It is a matter of degree and priorities chosen.
Hopefully this made my position clearer.
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Now off to watch Top Gear.
Can cars be considered to be gadgets? Tech for sure.
Anyway, I would say that Clarkson is alpha.
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Jobs is more of a personality cult, I think. And he isn’t pure geek. A pure geek wouldn’t be as interested in making pretty machines as he is. There is an aesthetic side to Jobs that is not geekish, really. Gates strikes me as more of a straight up geek and much, much less of a personality cult type.
Sometimes the way people go on with the term “alpha” reminds me of Chuck Norris jokes. SRSLY.
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I don’t know if Gates is to be considered such a geek. Well, I mean obviously he is in that he has a level of genius beyond most in the computer field, especially me, but this is not what “made” Microsoft. I have heard that Gates is possibly mildly autistic and this is what accounts for his somewhat odd behaviour.
What Gates is, is daring and ruthless.
Take how he landed a large contract to service computers (for the gov’t, I think), when he was only 14… until they found out his age, and canned his ass.
Or, how he landed DOS with a licensing contract for IBM (which is what made Microsoft more than any other factor). He basically lied his ass off to IBM and told them he already had the program, IBM said if he had the program that they would give him the contract… and so, Gates made the deal with IBM and then went out and bought a program called Q-DOS for $50,000 which he simply renamed MS-DOS, and then went back to IBM and said “see!”
Gates is a shrewd and ruthless businessman far more than a technilogical genius, although, he is that too.
Microsoft has never produced superior products, in fact, it’s almost the opposite – they have made some real crap that should have nearly bankrupted them several times, (Windows ME & Vista come immediately to mind) and would have had they not been engaged with monopoly Capitalism. Microsoft became huge because Gates was ruthless, and crushed anyone challenging his monopoly, destroying much technology along the way.
In this way, Gates is far different than other tech billionaires, like Pierre Omidyar of eBay or Larry Page and Sergei Brinn of Google. In both of those cases, we are seriously talking of NERDS. Omidyar basically took eBay from a sole propreitership in September 1995, while finishing up his Ph D in Mathematics from Stanford, and by the next summer, he changed the name to eBay, brought in partners who knew what they were doing… he acted as CEO for only about 1.5 years, until he was in waayyyy over his head, so he stepped down and appointed Meg Whitman to take his place, while he disappeared to Paris… six months later, eBay went public, and six months after that, Omidyar was worth approximately $8 Billion. Other people made Omidyar wealthy, not Omidyar.
Same as Larry Page and Sergei Brinn. Two geeks who have a hard time with emotional intelligence, both working on their Ph D’s in Mathematics, started up the program “backrub” out of their dorm rooms in 1996, and just got obsessed with perfecting it. By Sept. 1998, they leased a friend’s home garage and opened for business… the first board meetings were held around a ping pong table… 1year later, they landed $25,000,000 in Venture Capital and went to town… by March to August 2001, only 3 years later, they were in wayyyy over their heads in regard to running such a business. Eric Schmidt was brought in as Chairman of the Board in March, and as CEO in August. Larry and Sergei became President of Products and President of Technology, and went back to doing what they do best – being geeky engineers, while Schmidt was left to be the ruthless empire builder.
Quite a different story than Gates. If anything, I think Paul Allen had much more to do with the “guts” of early Microsoft, while Gates was the ruthless businessman. Allen apparently overheard Gates and another person discussing what to do with Allen when he was diagnosed with Hodgkin’s Disease, which is rumoured to be why Allen did not return to Microsoft after his recovery… apparently his old friend Bill was ready to throw him under the bus without a second thought… ruthless. Steve Balmer, who replaced Gates as CEO is also very ruthless.
Gates and people like Michael Dell are different from many of the other techie-billionaires, in that they were the actual driving force behind the business moreso than the technology, which in both cases was not the most superior on the market. Both dropped out of Harvard in their first year, and flouted the traditional wisdom, and I’m sure family expectations, to finish University like a good little boy with his silver spoon… but both had guts, vision, and sheer ruthless determination to grow their businesses.
Omidyar, Page, Brinn, the Facebook Kid, the two guys from YouTube who pocketed $600,000,000 each – none of these guys are the same as guys like Gates. They are tech-geeks only. Gates had something more. So does Steve Jobs, but, Gates kicked him in the nuts early on, and Jobs will never catch Gates, no matter how much he would like to – and he does.
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Actually there is no need to buy a computer at all. The one I am using right now was built for me by a relative. Actually a young man who just seems to know how to do these things.
So all you do is get the bits which are not that expensive and clip them together. So I have a quad core processor. I think I have two hard drives. A top end graphics cards. And lot else beside.
So there is your solution. Build your own.
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His mommy got that IBM deal for him through her social connections.
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I’m a computational physicist who runs a small server farm of OS X servers and if I could replace it with a stack of Linux servers I would. Both the software for scientific computing and the FLOPS/$$ are much, much better in Linux. I can buy a $500 Dell laptop and run Office/Outlook (which is actually what I do since my work won’t let me hook my Mac cluster up to the local network).
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Since I work with a lot of nerds and geeks (and am related to many as well) I have a useful definition for both that describes an importance difference between different techies.
A geek can’t control his obsession with social status. A nerd is a social status nihilist.
e.g. A geek will never stop talking about his iPod, Droid, car, etc. A nerd will point out that he still uses a phone with a curly wire and can accomplish just as much.
People don’t always the terms that way, but people always know what I mean when I explain it.
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I once met Bill Gates back in the 80s when he was giving a talk at the Houston Area PC users group (because it was a large group they used to get a lot of cool speakers). After the talk with prompting from my dad’s friend Harold, I walked up to him and asked him why he had changed the prompt in an old OS of his from “OK” to “?”. He actually took about a minute and explained all the details to me. I thought he was the coolest guy in the world.
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Rob Case, who used to run the blog “One Man’s Kingdom,” had an interesting hypothesis about alphas, in regard that there is an added dimension within the human world that is not found in the animal kingdom because humans have high intelligence.
He figured that guys like Isaac Newton were possibly more “alpha” than the cad who wanders around like Johnny Sperm Seed.
Humans have an extra way to “pass ourselves on” than merely through genetics, and that is through our intelligence, which can affect a far greater portion of future generations than ensuring that your hooked nose and balding crown stays in the gene pool.
Newton’s existence is still affecting the way the world works 300 years after he left it. The same goes for guys like Leonardo Da Vinci, whose ideas shaped the future, and are still shaping the present to a certain degree. Hitler also affected the way of the world in a large and enduring way without having children.
A human has the ability to “pass things on” in more ways than via the purely animalistic breeding “success” model.
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ferdrz there is probably a lot to what you say. The Early Anglo Saxons I don’t think believed in the after life but believe a person would live on in ‘word fame’. That is his heroic deeds would be talked about long after his death giving a sort of immortality.
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**
Good thread.
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@LILGRL
Actually, that would make the chair throwing Steve Balmer the most alpha of all.
<blogpimp>
Coincidence, but I just added a post on defining the alpha male (like the blogging world really needs another post on defining the alpha male).
[http://defaultuserblog.wordpress.com/2009/12/05/the-three-pillars-of-alpha/]
</blogpimp>
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THANK YOU
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I don’t have time to read all ~80 comments before mine, so please accept my apologies if someone has said this already.
I’ve been using Mac computers for well over 20 years now. I’ve been with Apple through the good, the bad and the very, very bad days. I think it’s great that Macs have become a lot more popular now, but I find their advertising appalling. There is nothing wrong with Windows PCs these days; Microsoft has closed the gap considerably. Macs are still better, but bashing Windows does not cut it.
Incidentally, if you compare computer prices feature by feature, Macs are not notably more expensive than Windows computers. It’s just that Apple basically only makes high end machines and packs them full of a lot of features that most people don’t need or want. Though I plan on sticking with Macs long into the future, I wouldn’t recommend a Mac for someone who really just wants quite a basic computer that won’t be doing serious work.
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This article (and the comments) was actually pretty enlightening. Apple’s whole strategy and success all makes sense now, even more so than before anyways. Let’s see… they sell overpriced crap? Women love that. They’re “hip”? Women don’t just love that, it’s a necessity: not optional! They’re plug-and-play and require a specialist to fix? Simplistic and serviceable, well, this describes women in many ways, eh? No wonder they appeal!
Oh, and the cherry on top: PC users are DORKS! Eww! Women wouldn’t touch dorks with someone else’s… disk.
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Epoxy –
I’m more or less convinced by your argument, given your qualifications and my own basic perception of alphas.
The only alphas I acknowledge are “leader of men” alphas, men who are often dominant over other men. The “Casanova alpha” is just a guy who manages to get is dick wet. The concept of alpha comes from looking at animal packs/groups and corresponds to male dominance in human groups. In packs, the alpha gets the vagina because he dominates the other males.
Gearheadedness is a very male thing, but beyond a certain threshold technology isn’t really something most men I’d identify as alphas are obsessed with. It’s a contribution that middle and lower status males make to the overall male group/team. The general commands the weapons proudly but he doesn’t make them.
Welmer –
Regarding alphas, I think I can cook up a post on this today….I’ve had some ideas coalesce into a working model recently.
Beta is really the more problematic category, because I think the way it is often used is misleading–it kind of rolls the whole rest of the greek alphabet into one. There’s a huge difference between a beta and an omega. As you said, in a complex society there are many levels of dominance and they are always changing.
Kevin K : why?
lilgrl : where are the nude pics in your blog? I do like that white top though.
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Kevin K: “A geek can’t control his obsession with social status. A nerd is a social status nihilist.
e.g. A geek will never stop talking about his iPod, Droid, car, etc. A nerd will point out that he still uses a phone with a curly wire and can accomplish just as much. ”
Oh man… my phone has a curly wire…
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G –
Just go to my page and hit up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right, a, b…
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I’ve never been able to find the right words to describe the taste of Starbuck’s coffee, but you’ve handed it to me with ‘burnt toast’. Spot on.
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And here I was thinking I was probably a bit peculiar in other people’s eyes.
As I read this comment I mentally answered ‘same here’ to every one of your personal observations, but was surprised that it doesn’t read like the recital of an eccentric – rather more like someone who’s a bit ahead of the pack. I’ll take the reflcted compliment, thank you.
I have seen a Blackberry once, but you could show me a kid’s video-game and tell me it was a Blackberry and I wouldn’t know the difference.
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I prefer “burnt mud.”
I was fortunate enough to be passing through Seattle about a year before Starbucks went national, and I thought it was the best coffee I’d ever tasted. I was very excited when they started appearing in Los Angeles, and very disappointed when I went to one and ended up with a cup of battery acid.
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I prefer “burnt mud.”
Haven’t tried burnt mud myself, but I’ll take your word for it.
There’s definitely a strong hint of the usual diner swill that passes for coffee in the Starbuck offering – I wonder if they decided to increase market share by making their coffee a more familar taste? Lots of joes can’t stand the taste of good coffee – just too damn furr-in. That Greek stuff they make by boiling the coffee in little copper pots has got to be the best, but it’s near impossible to find. Don’t know what’s wrong with folk.
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The way I heard it, Starbucks knew they’d never be able to obtain enough high quality beans to cover their sprawling market, so they buy any old beans and over-roast them until they all taste alike.
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Don’t let it bother you too much — you can still easily find excellent coffee in Seattle if you ever visit again. What annoys me is how difficult it is to find good tea here.
I think 21Guns is probably correct in that the quality has suffered mainly from mass production techniques. Really good coffee is so smooth that it’s difficult to imagine anyone disliking it.
You’re having a problem finding Turkish coffee? We’ve got Arabs selling it all over town here — good stuff. For my part, I prefer a straight cup of coffee, nice and strong but not sour.
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Does anyone know how to build a hackintosh? I’ve heard a lot about them, it’s a computer you build with pc parts but you can somehow install a mac os as well as a microsoft os.
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Because Xserve servers are about $500 more than one that can run Linux and have no real advantages except they run Mac OS X which costs an additional $100 per machine. I’ve tested codes I’ve written at work (where I have OS X servers) and at home (where I have a Linux machine) and the Linux machine is just as fast for the same processor speed. If I were to replace my cluster I could buy more processors which means faster processing times.
Mac OS X Server is really not a very good operating system for what I do. I basically just need a NSF server and all the machine can just mount that. The OS X Open Directory structure and security measures don’t work correctly and don’t let you do anything without setting up something very complicated. XGrid, which is their batch job software, depends on this over-complicated software architecture and has the annoying feature that you can’t prioritize your fast machines.
One of my collaborators uses a Linux farm and after going through all the details with him it sounds like a lot better set-up. The predecessor at my job was a Mac geek, so I’m stuck with them.
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LOL, as if LILGRL would even know who Tesla was without Googling.
Can Epoxy and LILGRL please monopolize the comments section of a different blog? SRSLY.
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My research into the subject, about a year ago, is that it isn’t worth the effort. They are very buggy and there aren’t drivers for enough hardware that people have laying around.
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F*** apple.
I have never, ever, ever, in my life purchased or used a product from the fag-apple marketing machine. Never.
In 1984 when the ‘mac’ came out it was an interesting ‘curiosity’ which men like me immediately branded as ‘not a real computer’. In those days we were of a mind that a computer had to be water cooled before it could be called a computer….otherwise they were jumped up calculators….
I have recently been working on a machine with 212 CPUS. It can scan 100M rows of data in 3 seconds. Compare that with your average iMac….
Most men do not know what a real computer is…and one thing is for sure…it is not an iMac….as for iPod…give me a break. iRiver kit is so much better it is not even funny….alas, there are so many stupid men in the world that iRiver went out of the business of making hard disk players like my 40GB iRiver player…
Everyone who listens to my iRiver player simply can not believe the sound quality….congratulations men…you bought fag-apple and gave up the quality, the masculine quality of buying the best, from the likes of iRiver…So go ahead and listen to your fag-ipods and know you are part gay in bringing down the quality of music that is generally listened to. Only gay men have iPpods!! And if you have an iPod and say you are not gay…I have a surprise for you….only gay men buy iPods…..because the sound quality is so crap that only men with a head full of shit would listen to it…..is THAT provocative enough???
By the way. I have nothing against gay men. Many of my male friends are gay. They just have lousy taste in music. I have never met a gay man who really appreciates good music played on high quality equipment. I don’t know why…perhaps it is because they think like women….I have no idea.
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Indomitable Thoughts December 5, 2009 at 12:21 am
“What about guys like nikola tesla?”
Can you spell HAARP? Telsa was a genuius of the first degree…and that is MANly. We are yet to see a female genius. Men like Telsa, who commit their entire lives to ideas that may benefit all mankind, are very MANly…..and men like JP Morgan who killed is ‘free electricity’ project for profit are also ‘MANly’ and need to be guarded against.
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Kevin K December 5, 2009 at 7:21 am
“I once met Bill Gates back in the 80s when he was giving a talk at the Houston Area PC users group. I thought he was the coolest guy in the world.”
I just wonder if you realised that Bill Gates father was heavily involved in the Eugenics movement and that junior is now promoting ‘Planned Parenthood’ with a few billion dollars…I wonder if you know that ‘Planned Parenthood’ is the ‘nicely named’company that was created by the likes of Margaret Sanger (who wanted go get rid of all those inferior blacks) and was well endorsed by the likes of Adolph Hitler (who wanted to get rid of all those inferior jews). They changed it to ‘Planned Parenthood’ after Hitler gave eugenics a bad name.
Yep. Bill Gates. The man who stole DR Dos. The man who is out there promoting mass genocide through Planned Parenthood, sounds like a really cool guy. Time to wake up folks. Ask yourself, “Why was Microsoft so ‘successful’?” Anyone who thinks it was ‘great management’ is in denial.
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“Their spokesperson is the know-it-all perpetual teen, Justin Long–a stand-in for every art nerd who’s ever been shoved in a locker.”
Ouch. That kinda desribes me. But I stopped getting fucked with by the time I was in middle school due to my penchent for savagely pounding meatheads and jocks.
“Kevin K December 5, 2009 at 7:17 am
Since I work with a lot of nerds and geeks (and am related to many as well) I have a useful definition for both that describes an importance difference between different techies.
A geek can’t control his obsession with social status. A nerd is a social status nihilist. ”
Nice. I’ve always differentiad the two by the fact that Geeks didn’t do good in school or hid the fact that they did. They were often more social, sometimes very social inside their exlusive niche cliche, and more likely to do drugs and follow pop-culture niches. Nerds always did well in school, didn’t care or were less able to be social, generally followed the rules, and rarely cared about anything pop-culture unless it directly related to their fields of study. This correlates to your analysis. Would you agree?
I have, for a while now, called myself an Alpha Geek. I never thought about the whole “art geek” thing. The main reason I never saw a problem with being an artist is, besides being naturally talented at it, is it frees me from various social contraints. Much of my quirky behavior, intentional and unintentional, is exused by people since I’m an artist. Salvidor Dali is one hero of mine. His life was pretty interesting, because he could do and say whatever he wanted, and people ate it up. One day I hope to be an Alpha Artist like him. Need to get my shit together.
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“This correlates to your analysis. Would you agree?”
Very much so. Nerds do like pop-culture but they consume it at a much slower rate than even normal people and avoid trends.
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I don’t know. To me, the Mac vs. PC ads are about alpha cool and state control (Long) vs. flustered nerdiness and social ineptitude (Hodgman.) I mean, I could suppose that you could say that Long is a beta because you see him as a stand-in for an artsy kid who gets kicked around in high school, but the thing is, artsy kids, or at least those artsy kids who can market and parlay their artsiness into an alternative kind of social status, get tons of pussy. Chicks dig vulnerability, but ONLY from artists and musicians.
I can’t imagine many chicks want to get ravished by John Hodgman.
Now, personally, as far as marketing, if I were in charge of the campaign I’d choose Jon Hamm over Long, because he’s bringing back the old-school-cool. Long may be “cool” in a smug, SWPL type-way, but Frank and Dean were the real deal. And Draper is the closest thing around today to that style.
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Stereotypical art fagginess is never alpha (though alphas can make art), which is why getting pussy has nothing to do with being alpha.
Women don’t want men like Long to “ravish” them. They want men like Long to write them poems and paint pictures of them and share feelings with them and tell them they are muses and generally service their egos. And ultimately, they want men who look like long to OBEY, because they are non-threatening. The only way guys like that ever wear the pants with their girlfriends is if they become famous. Then they have pussy on tap, so they don’t have to care, so they become more “alpha” like.
1. Do you think men like Long are actively repellent to women? Women, at least younger women, would be actually scared of a sexual advance by a John Hodgman-like individual under any circumstances. So even if you’re right that Justin Long is just a beta pet, he still beats Hodgman. Even though the Mac ads can be patronizing and condescending, I don’t think that they necessarily represent betatude.
2. (unrelated). Someone earlier made the argument that Google’s product is better because it’s a platform, not a single phone. However, I remember that Microsoft tried something similar with their Media Transfer Protocol for audio players. There were some solid players that were born of that approach (like the Creative Zen), but the vertically integrated Apple approach completely kicked Microsoft’s ass. I’m convinced that most people would rather have Apple’s out-of-the-box usability, rather than an array of choices of phone.
3. My own personal choice of phone was the Apple, but that was mainly because there did not seem to be a way to browse the Google app marketplace online and see what exactly is available and for how much. Because so many of the features of this generation of phones are delivered by apps, I didn’t want to buy a phone with no idea of what I could do with it. I could, however see exactly what was available for the iphone without for lurking for hours in a store using a display phone to browse the app store. I liked what I saw, and got the iPhone as a result.
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the most interesting bit in this is Jack Donovan, a homosexual male writer with a penchant for design, throwing around the term “art fag”.
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The majority of Spearhead readers actually don’t seem to care.
Men tend to be more interested in content and substance than they are in snarky gossip. This is one reason (of many) why I prefer to write for, hang out with and work for straight men.
My bio is available to anyone who wants to click on a link. Homosexuality is boring.
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