“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,” Charlie Brooker writes for The Guardian.
Brooker writes, “PCs are the ramshackle computers of the people. You can build your own from scratch, then customise it into oblivion. Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC). PCs have charm; Macs ooze pretension. When I sit down to use a Mac, the first thing I think is, ‘I hate Macs,’ and then I think, ‘Why has this rubbish aspirational ornament only got one mouse button?’ Losing that second mouse button feels like losing a limb.”
“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,” Brooker writes.
Brooker writes, “The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal ‘adventure’ in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-’em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac’s relationship with ‘fun.'”
“If you truly believe you need to pick [technology] that ‘says something’ about your personality, don’t bother. You don’t have a personality. A mental illness, maybe – but not a personality. Of course, that hasn’t stopped me slagging off Mac owners, with a series of sweeping generalisations, for the past 900 words, but that is what [Apple’s ‘Get a Mac’] ads do to PCs. Besides, that’s what we PC owners are like – unreliable, idiosyncratic and gleefully unfair. And if you’ll excuse me now, I feel an unexpected crash coming,” Brooker writes.
At the end of his article, Brooker reports, “This week: Charlie watched some episodes of Larry Sanders (on his PC). He played the customised Fawlty Towers map for Counterstrike (on his PC). He listened to the Windows startup jingle every 10 minutes as his PC repeatedly rebooted itself.”
Full article with much more, including Apple’s UK “Get a Mac” ad campaign, here.
MacDailyNews Take: A tidy bit of satire (see also: irony) from Brooker which, judging by the first twenty or so comments over at The Guardian, seems to have flown quite effortlessly over the heads of the majority of his readers.
I agree, mac people should bite my arse.
This British can be such prigs.
no superbowl ad tonight?
And how does this relate to Apple once again being silent about the future, on Super Bowl Sunday. What? Nothing to say? Nothing to announce? Perhaps stock tumbling another 10 points by tomorrow will wake them up. This confounded secrecy and mystery is getting old. Makes me tentative to buy anything. Sigh.
Uhhhhhh. Lithium, maybe? Just a suggestion.
XP has the better Fisher Price theme.
Please read MDN’s Take and look up “satire” before you incorrectly blast Brooker.
Brooker is ridiculing Windows PC users, not Mac users.
tomorrow is gonna suck for aapl
hmm apparently with every Mac hater they always seem to bring up gaming and right mouse clicking hmm. well right mouse clicking is not needed in the Mac OS so whats the point. Computers are not toys and should not have so many games on them… thats what consoles were made for.
For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC
Further proof that Windows is for toy computers.
the article was a joke…. and you can get a right/left mouse and with bootcamp play games *fyi
I love sarcasm.
I am also using a programable 5 button mouse with an Apple logo on it.
How did that happen?
Brilliant!
My Macbook Pro has right click
Why the Hell hate the Mac So much becuase of a One Button Mouse. You Don’t Like Apple’s mouse, put whatever USB mouse with 2 buttons that you like. Nothing to Argue
It would be awsome to see the MAc Market Share frow to Half of the PC’s.
XP has a Cartoony Look and as a whole, It feels like an Overhauled Win 95. DOS is still in XP’s backround. Nor does it compare to OS X’s reliability/ features. I Only use XP on my iMac Core 2 Duo when I have to use it like for school work. IT’s been working fine on it and works beautifully, but I still Prefer OS X.
Yeah, Build a WinTel System. In XP OS and Apps to get most things done, About $500 in Software alone. Core to Duo Processor $330, Video Cards, WiFi, Case, Mother board, Ram, DVD RW, LCD monitorm, Easily over $1450.. Whats Up, about $2500 all together. More than a Base Mac Pro that would still beat the Home Made system. And a Machine that will only run Windows too.
A MAC is all you need to get everything done. Dunno why people still argue that the other ways is better.
That was fucking awesome! I couldn’t have said it better if someone held a PC to my head.
<tangent>
I’m a little disappointed there was no Apple Superbowl commercial.
</tangent>
Well f#$Ck off and get a Windows machine then. Simple.
and are we still gonna be having this argument when we’re in our 70s ? About games I mean.
Hate! Hate! Hate! Must be a Christian. (ducking)
This was my favorite response. Yes I’m small…I’ll have to go to confession now.
“PCs are for the leather and latex S&M crowd — those who love a machine that is painfully difficult to use, necrophiles who are thrilled by the blue screen of death, daredevils who feel like James Bond because their computer is filled with spyware and Evil Kenevil wannabes who love the sight of a good crash.”
Satire or not, he came across as a whiney child. Not amusing or interesting in the least.
“The only way to have fun with a Mac is to poke its insufferable owner in the eye. For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac. Myst, the most pompous and boring videogame of all time, a plodding, dismal ‘adventure’ in which you wandered around solving tedious puzzles in a rubbish magic kingdom apparently modelled on pretentious album covers, originated on the Mac in 1993. That same year, the first shoot-’em-up game, Doom, was released on the PC. This tells you all you will ever need to know about the Mac’s relationship with ‘fun.'”
I have said this repeatedly. The market you want to hit is the younger market. The only way to do that is to have newest/bets/unique games. Once they are hooked by the games, they then try out iMovie, GarageBand, etc. Then, they become a Mac user for life.
He is also right in saying that Myst is boring.
I’ve said this to people hundreds of times already when people ask why I don’t like Apple:
WHITEBOX HARDWARE CHOICE!
Since Apple loves to have such strict control over how I use their software, I can’t use it unless I use Apple-branded machines. I work in computer servicing where I can custom build my own motherboard, and my own hardware. I can also deal with any issues that come up by myself. I don’t have an Apple store anywhere near here, so how would I service an Apple?
What if someone doesn’t like the design of Apple machines? Don’t get arrogant and think everyone needs to love Apple design. There’s things called a different opinion. I like having a custom made case, I don’t want some trendy white plastic. I like being able to choose what hardware I want, and knowing it’ll work.
So, in closing, I’d like to add that not everyone appreciates the Apple community saying, “We’re Mac users, there’s no excuse for not having one. They’re better.” This attitude alone is why I love Windows. You’ll never find people fighting over such stupid crap like software choice. Fun times chatting on MSN with people that don’t care if it’s Microsoft, or don’t even know it’s from them.
Good good times. I wish the Apple community would grow up a bit and stop with the war. Then maybe I’ll try one if they build a store here.
Whitebox,
Project much?
-jcr
Yo, whitebread hardware, where you get off postin’ a link to a non-existant Wikipedia article, huh? What shu thinkin’, man? What shu drinkin’? What shu smokin’? You say what you say to poke the hornet’s nest. Not such a good idea, you ask me. Sheesh. Oi gevalt!
the guardian is left wing crap of the lowest common denominator
think the sun without the tits
Come on some of you guys, it’s satire, it’s making fun of PC users who say this sort of crap about us. I’m still pissed off about the superbowl commercial though (or lack of one).
“Sometimes you have to slap it to make it work properly, just like the Tardis (Doctor Who, incidentally, would definitely use a PC).”
Actually, if you look really closely there IS an Apple symbol in the corner of one of the TARDIS screens. It may explain WHY the TARDIS is so unreliable.
(only kidding. I’m not really that sad.)
Well done MDN for spotting that this is satire. You chaps really are bright. Well, that’s what you would have us believe, anyway. Unfortunately, you missed the whole point here. This has nothing to do with computers, it is just basic social commentary, pointing out what pretentious, preening posers certain members of the Mac community are (just read regular MDN comments to see what I mean).
Probably you skipped over the section where Brooker wrote Mitchell plays a repressed, neurotic underdog, and Webb plays a selfish, self-regarding poseur. So when you see the ads, you think, “PCs are a bit rubbish yet ultimately lovable, whereas Macs are just smug, preening tossers.” In other words, it is a devastatingly accurate campaign. It was a nice try at spin, MDN, and sure enough, many of the Mac Fanboys that troll this site fell for it. This kind of blind sycophancy sometimes makes me wish that PCs weren’t such shite because it is often quite embarassing to be a Mac user and end up being categorised with all the poisonous nitwits that post on this site.
This guy is great! Dvorak should take notes.
i hate macs too, since januari 1984, i hate my macbook pro as i hated my duo 230 and my PB 100, i hated the mac portable after i hated my mac II, an i really hated the mac 128, because it changed my life !, i hated it so much that i left school at 16 to join apple in another country on another continent.
Good troll piece..definitely a class above Dvorak. The Mac has its good points…like not being a fsckingPfsckingC.
So…no SuperBowl ad? Who started that ball rolling…an even bigger troll?
LOL at everyone who thought this was a genuine “I hate Macs” article.
As was said above about the UK ‘Get a mac’ ad campaign…
I don’t think it will be very effective over here, as not enough people know about OS X or it’s merits. Shame really, but it doesn’t matter to me as I’ve already got a Mac, and there’s no chance of Apple going bankrupt or anything!
@Steves Job: a pity you have to be so anxious and neurotic about who you associate with…try a relaxing dose of something nice…
Because you must know (if yo’ve been to MDN more than once) that MDN exists to be outrageous and to read outrageous things. If MDN was the normal, boring, bland nonsense you read anywhere else, it would be as empty as a dedicated Apple iPhone* security convention.
And as for Charlie Brooker, he might in his little world only see Mac users as he paints them, but from where I sit they look like they represent the whole diversity of humanity… (for example, just look at the results of debates as to whether Mac users are liberal or conservative. Contrary to the held viewpoint, feedback often suggest there are more conservative Mac users than liberals..!).
*http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q1.07/6486A692-BA0F-4B74-B0F2-D0B895EF6469.html is a great expose of the smoke blowers Enderle et al who talk about iPhone security…
And christians cut peoples heads off in the year 2007.
HATE HATE He must be a LIBERAL!!!!!!!
Charlie Brooker’s Screen Burn is a fabulous television review column, similarly Screen Wipe is a brilliant show about the inner workings of television.
Brooker is a journalist who writes about television, and computer games (hence gaming references). So it’s little suprise that today he’s commenting on the new British Apple Mac adverts, and inbetween satire makes some good points that Apple’s adverts may alienate PC users rather than make them switch.
<i>While I don’t have anything against shameless promotion per se (after all, within these very brackets I’m promoting my own BBC4 show, which starts tonight at 10pm), <b>there is something infuriating about this particular blitz.<b><i>
Before anybody starts taking Charile Brooker too literally, may I draw your attention to two things.
1) He makes a living by writing comedy material.
2) At the end of the article in ‘This week’ it says : ” …… He listened to the Windows startup jingle every 10 minutes as his PC repeatedly rebooted itself.”
The Guardian is written by wankers and read by wankers so Mac users will never read this article in the Guardian
Brooke seems like such and angry person, oh wait. He uses a windows computer. That explains it.
are u a all completely stupid ?
i’t s comedy ! jesus christ !
“MacDailyNews Take: A tidy bit of satire (see also: irony) from Brooker which, judging by the first twenty or so comments over at The Guardian, seems to have flown quite effortlessly over the heads of the majority of his readers.”
!!!! hello wake up !
Yes, I understand the satire, in this particular instance, but on a related point, are there any Doze-centric sites that are always full of Apple fanboys blasting Dozers? Or is it that some Doze users have some psychological (inferiority?) complex over their choice of OS that they have to always be a**holes on Apple sites, like this one? Just wondering.
some people choose the mac because they can see why it’s a better machine, but others are just as dogmatic and stupid as most windows users (who are not all blind, they don’t always have the choice)
in other words: we are all the same 😀
Macs Work. Pc DONT.
QED
The Guardian is a great newspaper. I love reading much of their content and certainly their op-ed stuff.
Far better reading than the yellow journalists of the duped US press that supported the whole “WMDs in Iraq”
The Guardian was one of the papers that first reported the WMD lies that Blair/Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld spouted.
I still can’t believe that Colin Powell went along with all that tripe.
MD Magic word.. Effect… the effect of the article was to affect some change and cause derisive laughter and confusion over just what Charlie Brooker was saying
hey take a look at this: there are other OSes than OSX like amiga or BeOs and i don´t believe that enterprises like HP and others don´t only creat GUIs for those systems and then we have lots of systems and choices,todays M$ searchers and programers are ignorant because they don´t get it and insted of make a new GUI with a diferent core they really are IGNORANTS,but apple is NOT IGNORANT because apple knows how to think; and ppl that hate macs should be the next programers of GUIs and cores.
Yes indeed, Doom was released for the PC, but it was developed on NeXTstep, which is the underlying foundation of Mac OS X (kernel, development environment, an GUI).
Satire?
Unfair and not true!
My stylist, decorator, personal assistant, masseuse, astrologer, psychologist, concierge, manicurist, internist and financial advisor have all just assured me that I am not a pretentious Mac user. Gotta go. I’m late for lattes.
That can’t be real. If it is; that person has got serious attitude problems.
I think computers as screwdrivers, some are made out of bulky plastic and have sharp corners in the handle, while some have ergo-handle with soft rubber grip…
… You’ll know the difference after using both. After a decade of PC usage, it didn’t take me more than a week to understand why I prefer Macs.
Its just a case of proven identity – Mr. Brooker saw the UK Mac vs. PC ads and saw himself in the mirror, and looking back at himself he indeed saw the “sluggard” [labeled by Bill Gates himslef in a recent NewWeek interview] portrayed on tv in himself. Self realization is often a very painful experience – lots of people never fully recover.
Masa: You can’t be real. If you were you would have read the fucking part about it being satire at the top of this page. Moron.
It didn’t even take a page for the anti-Christian leftist trolls to show. Is there something about MDN that attracts these bottom-feeders? I’d say it has something to do with the amount of personal power they have — probably close to none. That’s why they rant and rave and try to subvert discussions about computers — computers for goodness’ sake — into flamewars about how much they hate Bush, Jesus, or both.
The original article is satire, but that only really becomes apparent when he touches on games. I thought it was even funnier how some MDN posters fell for it, hook, line, and sinker. (P.S. life is not about games. Real people use computers to do real things that actually impact society, and don’t drown themselves in oninistic delusions of power.)
Ergo flip inno trepanicupola. Seem moniaca eepodreenismus apa inno flan. Tacjo, macjo, ticjo. Alla mona peea.
Here we go…
His FIRST example of Pee Sea superiority.
1.) “Macs are glorified Fisher-Price activity centres for adults”.
Now, the second really hits home and proves the point unequivocally…
2.) “For proof, stroll into any decent games shop and cast your eye over the exhaustive range of cutting-edge computer games available exclusively for the PC, then compare that with the sort of rubbish you get on the Mac.
So, Macs are toys because you can’t buy every crappy PC in existence?
Methinks those “arguments” cancel each other out.
So,what we REALLY have here is a PRIME example of another ass-clown looking to boost traffic to whatever web site he/she/it represents.
Clue 1: If you feel the need to say something hundreds of times, perhaps your audience doesn’t care what you have to say.
Clue 2: If you prefer option B, go for it and get on with your life. Why the vitriolic hate for option A?
For all you people fulminating against the Brooker piece:
Sarcasm ——–> *Whoosh*
You——> 🙁
Definitely not enough irony in your diets.
Bought a couple responces above.
Some Argue About Software, White Box and Choice.
You don’t like the White Box, Get the Small Silver Box, Or the Flat Silver and Black Laptops, or the Big Metal Silver one that one of the Best computers made. You Don’t Like apples hardware in the first place,, might as well not say anything.
Choice, Theres lots of choice. What Choice do you want, the portable, the rock solid, the stunning all in one, or the supper small computer. What so difficult about choice? All are great and are all superior to looks and over all performnce than most of the competition.
Software? What the Hell? You got Intel in your hands. Allot of programs out there that lets you use WIN XP apps on OS X without even seeing the XP Desk Top, or If you have no choice just put XP on the Mac When You Need it.
On a MaC You can run Almost any program you want. Period..
Those haters out there I bet wish they have a Mac in their hands so much, that they can’t even admit that the Mac is Better.
Bilding a PC is a thing of the Past, I builded PC’s Before, but it’s pointless when you add the price tag. The Work but in, and what do you get, the same PC most people have on thier desks, nothing special about it.
But When You run a Mac, You know you have something different than what most of the world has. And It gives such a great feeling when you use it. I feel great when I use it. Running windows when I have to, I just do what I gotta do as fast as I can cause I can’t wait to get out.
“If you truly believe you need to pick [technology] that ‘says something’ about your personality, don’t bother. You don’t have a personality. A mental illness, maybe – but not a personality.”
Thank God people don’t feel that way about their cars, too, or we’d really be in trouble.
MDW= line, as in what has a hook at one end and a troll at the other
Sadly, it’s not actually satire. It’s supposed to be a humorous rant, but it’s meant more seriously than not.
“HATE HATE He must be a LIBERAL!!!!!!!”
Us liberals only hate hypocritical, racist, close-minded, homophobic, closeted Conservatives.
m
The main difference is that while PC uers are busy playing their blessed games, Mac users are out having sex.
With other people.
Ha ha ha. Don’t send him Lithium, or flame him. Somebody get him a decent multi-button mouse. 😀
Seems to me to be a parody on Dvorak’s recent rant.
“Dvorak: ‘I personally do not like the Mac; Windows Vista’s ‘Mac-like’ qualities may spell its doom’”
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/12417/
this guy gets it:!!
http://daily.stanford.edu/article/2007/1/23/sketchIarticle
gee, wheres the love? They’re only computers
” width=”19″ height=”19″ alt=”wink” style=”border:0;” />
Sooo……..Zune Tang works at The Guardian???
I love my right click button on my Mac. OSX has always supported it…it’s AWSOME.
But on a Mac, the right click is also spell checker…man I love that.
And yes I read it was aall in joke…I still wanted to say how much I love it.