‘I’m a PC’ guy John Hodgman really an Apple Mac user

23 Comments

“John Hodgman is a very intelligent man,” Mike Miliard reports for The Phoenix.

Miliard reports, “He is also a very strange man. His book, The Areas of My Expertise (which has just been released in paperback by Riverhead), is an omnibus compendium of probable falsehoods. According to the dust jacket, the arenas of his know-how are centered primarily on ‘matters historical; matters literary; matters cryptozoological; hobo matters; food, drink, and cheese (a kind of food); squirrels and lobsters and eels; haircuts; utopia; what will happen in the future; and most other subjects.’ Tom Perotta gets it just about right when he calls Hodgman ‘witty, urbane, and completely out to lunch.'”

Miliard reports, “In addition to being the author of this mock almanack, chock-a-block with “strange facts and odd-ities of the bizarre,” and curator of his own semi-regular academic sermons, the Little Gray Book Lectures, Hodgman is also a contributor to the New York Times Magazine, McSweeney’s, This American Life, Paris Review, and The Daily Show. He is also a “former professional literary agent.” And, of course, he is a PC. (Not really, but he plays one on TV, opposite a Mac.) In advance of his reading at Brookline Booksmith on September 27, we managed to wangle 20 minutes of his time to talk about hoboes, mole men, eels, chupacabras, his hometown of Brookline, and his sudden widespread fame.”

So, to get into character as the PC, does that take some sort of method acting?
No, I’m not an actor, per se . . . . I was out there in the wilderness with PCs feeling completely frustrated, and appreciating their attempt to be nice and easy to use and constantly amazed by the fact that they were the most confusing boobs. I myself am a Mac user. I bought the very first Mac, or convinced my father to buy it, in 1984. I used it through high school and college; it was the first computer I used outside of college, then I went though a brief period of exile during my corporate years as a professional literary agent, where I was forced to use a PC . . . . Mac has always gotten the design and the interface down pat. They just know it. PC’s efforts to emulate this, and its constant failing, and its self-satisfied arrogance about it being the most used platform in the world, all of that made it very easy to craft a character who, while he is a boob, and often concerned about how he comes off, at his core really feels bad for the Mac. Is really so delusional to believe he’s much cooler than the Mac. The whole reason they’re standing in that white room is because he’s trying to help the Mac out.

Full article here.

[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Pierre Films” for the heads up.]

MacDailyNews Take: Simple logic told us that Hodgman was a Mac user from Miliard’s opening sentence.

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23 Comments

  4. macca, Excellent comparison since Stephen Fry is a Mac user as well.

    For those who don’t know, Stephen Fry went on a TV show called room 101 and raved about Apple and their designs. Room 101 is a show where celebs go on and pick a list of things they hate to banish to room 101 then they talk about why they chose them, I don’t remember what he picked but basically, the Ive designs were an example of the complete opposite of whatever shitty design the item he chose had.

    They should really get him to do some UK versions of the ads, ‘cept I don’t think anyone would ever believe he was a PC.

    Alternatively they should work on sampling his voice for leopard – he is the new guide after all.

    Reply

  9. Great, another story confirming the fact that Mac users are:

    1: Gay

    2: Gullible

    3: A bit touched in the head

    I for one are none of these, so I wish to dispell the stereotype.

    Look at the reasoning, why use a operating system that is safe, reliable and mostly secure and only has a market share of 4%?

    We must be crazy not to use the OS that the other 95% of lemmings use right?

    I stand miscorrected and confused as always.

    Reply

  10. Actually Stephen Fry banished WIndows/PC’s to room 101, which was his reason to get starry eyed about the Mac.

    He also does the voice for the Hitchhikers Guide, written also by another true Machead, Douglas Adams.

    Reply

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