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Comparing Apple to my cultural heroes


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Comparing Apple to my cultural heroes
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Doxxic
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
 
2007-10-31, 07:47

Ok - enough with acting cool and talking quasi expertly, rationally and concretely about Apple product benefits or the strengths or the faults of their strategies.

Everyone knows I'm emotionally attached. I'm a fan. Been one through Apple's darkest years, even though I was checking their site with my Windows machine and not with a Mac.

And I can also tell why I'm not just a fanboi.
Being an Apple fan differs from being a fan of - say - Britney Spears, Johnny Depp, or even Maradona, because Apple isn't just pretty, or good at something, or both - they're are a cultural hero of epic proportions.
There.

Apple's track of heroic deeds is the kind that you find the classic, epic stories - and really don't believe.
Apple can also be compared with some great children's protagonists who represent the greater themes in life.
There are several things Apple did, or things that happened to the company, that remind me of stories from the classical Greek literature, and even to the Bible!

To start with the children's books, I often wonder if a man like Roald Dahl could have figured that a company like Apple would ever really exist.
He is the man who wrote The Fantastic Mister Fox, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Danny the Champion of the World and the Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. Jobs is the combined incarnation of Mr Fox, Willy Wonka and Henry Sugar!

Another of my favorite children's books was How Tom Beat Captain Najork and his Hired Sportsmen, by Russell Hoban.

[out of time - to be continued later on]
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curiousuburb
Antimatter Man
 
Join Date: May 2004
Location: that interweb thing
 
2007-10-31, 15:09

And the thread title looked promising. Seemed fine, up until...

Quote:
Originally Posted by Doxxic View Post
Britney Spears, Johnny Depp, or even Maradona, because Apple isn't just pretty, or good at something, or both
Britney -
  • Not so much pretty as scary.
  • Good at: flashing cooter, flunking rehab, lolitaness-without-gratuitous-flashing (onceuponatime)
Johnny Depp -
  • Not so much pretty as handsome, perhaps. YMMV
  • Good at: looking cool, occasionally acting.
Maradona -
  • Not pretty at all. Not as scary as Tevez, but still an ugly mofo.
  • Good at: flunking rehab, icanhascheezeburgerz, footy/handy (onceuponatime)

Now if you'd listed 'inventors' or 'great salesmen' or 'entrepreneurs' the comparison might be easier.

Is Jobs more of a Tesla or an Edison?
Each had their wacky ideas, and although Edison dabbled more in multimedia, most might equate Edison's later monopolistic tendencies and marketshare with Microsoft. Tesla seems to be more of the iconoclast/visionary in some areas.

Jobs as PT Barnum or David Ogilvy? Maybe. HG or Orson Wells? Possibly either.

Jobs as Georges_Méliès or Chaplin? Hmmmm.

All those who believe in telekinesis, raise my hand.

Last edited by curiousuburb : 2007-11-01 at 06:41. Reason: spekking
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Doxxic
Veteran Member
 
Join Date: Mar 2005
Location: Amsterdam
 
2007-11-01, 05:11

I was mentioning those as examples why you can't call an Apple fan your average 'fanboi'. Don't go to deep into that, please!
Neither was I trying to compare Apple with great salesmen or inventors.
That's not very interesting because Jobs already is one of the planets greatest salesman and Apple already is a great inventor and is compared to those very often.

I'm trying to say something new, by comparing Apple/Jobs with famous fictional and epic heroes.

The point of that is that this explains Apple's brand strength (fan following) more than it does when you explain it just in terms of being great at sales or inventing cool things.

There is something about the Apple story that touches people in a way only he most famous legends and fictional literature do and I'm trying to make that explicit.

I've mentioned some great, famous characters from a few children's books, like Willy Wonka and Fantastic Mr. Fox, but there are more places to look.

As a personality, Apple fascinates people because they provide a continuous story of shrewdness and surprise, like Odysseus. Or the fox, in LaFontaine's fables.

As a role model, Apple is like many biblical examples: David (vs Goliath), Moses...
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