iMac 309
The Cult of Mac
Neil Perryman
Apple user since 2002

Mac Users are also Mac Fans

iLoyalty
Apple’s Faithful
Appleholics
Macheads
Macaddicts
Macolytes

“Apple is a strange drug that
you can’t get enough of.
They shouldn’t call it Mac.
They should call it Crack!”
Barry Adamson, The Guardian
Quoted in Kahney (2002)
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2002/12/56575

iCult
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/7627025.stm

iSubculture
Is it the branding?
Is it the social relationships?
Is it the the machine Itself?
Common themes emerge: a sense of community;
an“alternative”; a nonconformist brand that stands
for liberty and creativity…

“If you see someone in an airport in London, or
somewhere down in Peru or something, and
you see an Apple tag on their bag, or an Apple
T-shirt… you already have an instant friend.
Most likely you share something very core to
your being with this person, which is a life
outlook, a special vision.”
Chris Spinosa, Apple Employee #8

Mac users are extremely cool. It’s a
lifestyle thing. Mac users tend to be
liberal, free-thinking, counterculture.
They dress well, they look good, and
have discerning taste. Mac users
have a sense of humour. They also
help each other.
Leander Kahney
The Cult of Mac (2004) p7

iCounterculture
From Satori to Silicon Valley by Theodore Roszak (1999)
http://library.stanford.edu/mac/primary/docs/satori/
Rosnak argues that 4 major movements germinated in the
1960s counterculture:
Political Protest
Drugs
Music
The Personal Computer…

The home computer terminal became the centerpiece
of a sort of electronic populism. Computerized
networks and bulletin boards would keep the tribes
in touch, exchanging the vital data that the power elite
was denying them. Clever hackers would penetrate the
classified databanks that guarded corporate secrets
and the mysteries of state.
Who would have predicted it? By way of IBM's video
terminals, AT&T's phone lines, Pentagon space shots,
and Westinghouse communications satellites, a
worldwide, underground community of computer-literate
rebels would arise, armed with information and ready to
overthrow the technocratic centers of authority.
Roszak (1999)

Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak circa 1975
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxthr3fq-EI

“There were people thinking that if they
could master personal computing
technology, they could fight back against
the Machine. And so while there were
lawyers who just wanted to use them to
automate their offices, a lot of people in
the users’ groups were were really using
personal computers as a tool against The
Man.”
Chris Spinosa, Apple Employee #8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OYecfV3ubP8

“The IBM PC was created by people
who drank alcohol.
The Mac was created by people
who smoked pot.”
Anonymous Apple employee
quoted in Kahney (2004) p33

It is no coincidence that the first shots of
the computer revolution were fired from the
same Bay Area that brought us Haight-
Ashbury in the 1960s. The very conception
of the almost hallucinatory realm we call
cyberspace required the imaginative
capabilities of people who were familiar
with navigating hallucinatory headspace…
Douglas Rushkoff
http://rushkoff.com/articles/articles-and-essays/they-call-me-cyberboy/

iStoner
Apple iSwitch Campaign 2002
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7872246776955336366

iLove Steve

Jobs is worshipped like
a rock star
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCZk1e9hf1s
Treated kindly as a
visionary by the media…
…odd, considering
Apple’s market share...

Jobs as Christ:
The “call” - Homebrew Club
The “disciple” - Wozniak
The “trails” - IBM & Microsoft
The “apotheosis” - becoming a
technology prophet
The “persecution” - ousted from Apple,
a decade in the wilderness
The “resurrection” - the return to Apple
The “glory” - the iMac, iPod & iPhone

“Jobs is widely viewed as an
asshole” - Kahney (2004) p48
“He is a bundle of paradoxes. A
manipulative cult-of-personality
leader, he also brings egalitarian
principles to his workplace. He is,
it seems, a revolutionary control
freak” - Scott Rosenburg (1999)
http://www.salon.com/bc/1999/01/
cov_05bc3.html
How does Steve Jobs change a
lightbulb?
He holds up the bulb and lets the
universe revolve around him…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?
v=jjSbNqqhjbE

The Cult of Woz
The Master Hacker
Interested in Electronics, not
Empire Building
Left industry to become
volunteer teacher for over a
decade
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoiGJMZjs0o

iDesign

iDesign

iMicroscoff
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dR8SAFRBmcU
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UM-DWAoVoR0
To Mac users, Microsoft represents everything that Apple
isn’t. Apple innovates; Microsoft copies. Apple puts out
solid products; Microsoft puts out buggy ones. Apple
represents creativity and individuality; Microsoft
represents business and conformity. Apple is the scrappy
underdog and Microsoft is the big, predatory monopoly.
Kahney (2004) p.248

iHate
I hate everything Apple - starting with rock star wanna-be
Steve Jobs in his black turtleneck and jeans on his big,
lavish stage, telling the world every three weeks or so how
Apple's newest overpriced gizmo will change the world.
And I hate the products themselves. Overpriced, overhyped
and underwhelming. Oh, I forgot, they have such \"elegant\"
design. They just \"feel right.\" All the stubble-cheeked, pony-
tailed, black-clad hipsters in the design department get it, but
us dweeby drones doing the real work are just out of touch.
David Ramel, ComputerWorld, 2007
http://blogs.computerworld.com/node/6373

iParody
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCoveDp9PqM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w6toaQXwCdU&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MVwbhsqEyNI&feature=related

iBrooker
I hate Macs. I have always hated Macs. I hate
people who use Macs. I even hate people who
don't use Macs but sometimes wish they did.
Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres
for adults; computers for scaredy cats too
nervous to learn how proper computers work;
computers for people who earnestly believe in
feng shui.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.media

Cue 10 years of nasal bleating from Mac-likers who
profess to like Macs not because they are fashionable,
but because \"they are just better\". Mac owners often
sneer that kind of defence back at you when you mock
their silly, posturing contraptions, because in doing so,
you have inadvertently put your finger on the dark fear
haunting their feeble, quivering soul - that in some
sense, they are a superficial semi-person assembled
from packaging; an infinitely sad, second-rate replicant
who doesn't really know what they are doing here, but
feels vaguely significant and creative each time they
gaze at their sleek designer machine. And the more
deftly constructed and wittily argued their defence, the
more terrified and wounded they secretly are.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.media

Ultimately the campaign's biggest flaw is that it
perpetuates the notion that consumers
somehow \"define themselves\" with the
technology they choose. If you truly believe you
need to pick a mobile phone that \"says
something\" about your personality, don't bother.
You don't have a personality. A mental illness,
maybe - but not a personality.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/feb/05/comment.media

iBrand
\"People talk about technology, but
Apple was a marketing
company. It was the marketing
company of the decade.”
Former CEO John Scully, 1997
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/
cultofmac/2002/12/56677
\"Without the brand, Apple would be dead. Absolutely.
Completely. The brand is all they've got. The power of their
branding is all that keeps them alive. It's got nothing to do
with products.”
Mark Gobe (2002)
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677

iBrand
Apple: It’s All About the Brand, Kahney (2002) Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677
The company projects a humanistic corporate culture and a
strong corporate ethic, characterized by volunteerism,
support of good causes or involvement in the community.
Nike blundered here. Apple, on the other hand, comes
across as profoundly humanist. Its founding ethos was
power to the people through technology, and it remains
committed to computers in education.
The company has a unique visual and verbal vocabulary,
expressed in product design and advertising: it’s products
and advertising are clearly recognizable.

iBrand
Apple has a branding strategy that focuses on the
emotions. The Apple brand personality is about lifestyle;
imagination; liberty regained; innovation; passion; hopes,
dreams and aspirations; and power-to-the-people through
technology. The Apple brand personality is also about
simplicity and the removal of complexity from people's
lives; people-driven product design; and about being a
really humanistic company with a heartfelt connection with
its customers.
Marketingminds.com
http://www.marketingminds.com.au/branding/apple_branding_strategy.html

iBrand

iBrand

iBrand

iBrand
\"It's like having a good friend. That’s what's interesting
about this brand. Somewhere they have created this really
humanistic, beyond-business relationship with users and
created a cult-like relationship with their brand. It's a big
tribe, everyone is one of them. You're part of the brand.\"
Mark Gobe in Apple: It’s All About the Brand (2002) Wired Magazine
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/commentary/cultofmac/2002/12/56677

iVillage
Muniz Albert M. Jr. and Thomas C. O’Guinn (2001),
Brand Community, Journal of Consumer Research,
27 (March), 412-32.
Shared Consciousness - “common values”
Rituals and Traditions - history, logos, blogs
Moral Responsibility - help solve problems, share info
http://www.wired.com/gadgets/mac/news/2002/12/56678

iMasochists
The “punisher-me-harder” brigade (Khaney, 2004)
“It’s a cult. It’s what kept the damn thing afloat through
some of the most incredibly bad decisions I’ve ever seen
anywhere.”
Gil Amelio, Apple CEO 1994-1997
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9BnLbv6QYcA

iPod, iPhone

iPod
170 million sold worldwide - 2008
The iPod is a genuine cultural
phenomenon. (It is) fast
becoming the signature music
technology of its era, like the
jukebox in the 50s and the
Walkman in the 80s. The word
“iPod” is already a brand
eponym - like Kleenex or
Xerox, it has come to signify
all MP3 players.
Khaney (2004), p240

iPhone
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8013846.stm

iFuture
The Mac is 25 years old…
\"If you look backward in this business, you will be crushed.
You have to look forward.” - Steve Jobs, January 2009
Jobs on a “leave of absence” due to ill health…
Apple will no longer contribute to Macworld Expo…

iFilm
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x44l1c_macheads-the-movie-trailer_tech

iRead
Kahney, Leander (2004) The Cult of Mac. No Starch Press
Frieberger, Paul and Swaine, Michael (1999) Fire in the Valley: the
Making of the Personal Computer. McGraw Hill
Linzmeyer, Owen (2004) Apple Confidential 2.0. No Starch Press
Hertzfeld, Andy (2004) Revolution in the Valley: the Insanely Great
Story of How the Mac was Made. O’Reilly Media.
Malone, Michael (2000) Infinite Loop: How the World’s Most Insanely
Great Computer Company Went Insane. Aurum Press.