“The first Apple iPhones hit US shops tomorrow and their arrival has thrown the spotlight on the fanatical and burgeoning movement known as the iCult. Already iPilgrims are queuing outside the Apple temple in Manhattan’s 5th Avenue to be the first to own the holy handset,” Robert Shrimsley writes for The Financial Times.
“The iPhone is the latest ‘cool tool’ from the mind of Steve Jobs. The self-styled techno-prophet appears to believers in a black polo neck at mass religious gatherings known as MacWorld, with revelations of ways they can part with their money,” Shrimsley writes. “At first, the iCultists were seen as a harmless tech-heads who droned on about their Macs, but of late they have adopted a sinister, evangelical tone.”
“It’s easy to spot iCultists. They can be seen in crowds showing off the features of their iPod or bleating on about the user-friendly, ‘almost intuitive’ features on their laptop. ‘Once you’ve tried Mac, there’s no going back,’ they say,” Shrimsley writes.
“With the iPhone, Jobs has taken the iCult to the next level with a sleek, new piece of kit about which to evangelise. Smoking may soon be banned but every boozer will be filled with passive smugness as local iCultists show off the handset’s array of dazzling but pointless features,” Shrimsley writes.
Full article, Think Before You Click™, here.
Shrimsley displays many classic signs of Stockholm Syndrome and Cognitive Dissonance:
• Negative feelings by the victim toward family, friends, or authorities trying to rescue/support them or win their release
• Inability to engage in behaviors that may assist in their release or detachment
• Seeking to reduce information or opinions that make him or her uncomfortable
Don’t hate ignorant lemmings like Shrimsley who viciously and blindly lash out at things and people that threaten the comfort of their limited world view; pity them. They have been abused by Microsoft and other purveyors of mediocrity so hard and for so long that they cannot accept that others are free and happy. Fearful sufferers like Shrimsley subconsciously want everyone to enter into their hell in the vain hope that it will somehow help to reduce their misery. Shrimsley and others like him are obviously in a sad, sad state.
Related: Defending Windows over Mac a sign of mental illness
MacDailyNews Note: Fellow cultists, the annual cult of Apple indoctrination will be held at Apple and AT&T company-owned retail stores tomorrow, June 29, at 6pm local time. Don’t miss your chance at enlightenment! Following the event, we’ll all hop into the vans and go door to door selling iTunes Gift Cards, watching iPhone ads on our iPhones, and soliciting Windows to Mac switchers. As usual, the Kool-aid reception is planned for midnight – all are welcome. Do not forget your robes!
Sounds like somebody’s long on Microsoft stock.
So it’s known as the iCult with iPilgrims yet within the same article they’re then called iCultists from then on and iPilgrims isn’t mentioned again. Even if the gist of the article were true it doesn’t stop the thing being bollocks.
MDN… Amen.
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Shirm has nailed the impression among the great majority of people who care about technology that we are, indeed, cultists and mindless lemmings of the exalted Mr. Jobs.
“At first, the iCultists were seen as a harmless tech-heads who droned on about their Macs, but of late they have adopted a sinister, evangelical tone.”
Sinister??? Wow…
Sounds like someone’s long on Steve Ballmer’s c#@k…
I would not consider them part of an iCult.
The proper view is the iPeople joining in iForce to get iFreedom!!!!
iThink I have said iNufff!
typical british envy….
once a great empire, now just pathetic wannabees
seen most clear through the press
While the rest of our countrymen are concerned about the war, amnesty, and Paris, we faithful have only two questions that govern our lives at the moment: 1. Can I get my hands on this thing by midnight tomorrow and 2. Will it work like it’s suppose to?
That is, assuming the rest of our countrymen are concerned about anything at all.
“black polo neck”
Bucka-Wha?
I’m reminded of “The Architect’s Sketch”…
“…I see. Well, of course, this is just the sort of blinkered philistine ignorance I’ve come to expect from you non-creative garbage. You sit there on your loathsome spotty behinds squeezing blackheads, not caring a tinker’s cuss for the struggling artist. You excrement, you whining hypocritical toadies with your colour TV sets and your Tony Jacklin golf clubs and your bleeding masonic secret handshakes. You wouldn’t let me join, would you, you blackballing bastards. Well I wouldn’t become a Freemason if you went down on your stinking knees and begged me.”
Olé “Bobbi” is probably moist around the privates about not picking the right horse in the race and having a bunch of useless worthless Windows Hardware cluttering up his flat.
I’ll just smile and wave… 24 hours and 8 hours away in my timezone.
Hano
Those in the empire view the cultist, remember the empire has chosen the name for us, in the rebellion as sinister and evil because we may Think Different.
Will he also put that tag on iPod users…of which about 90% are Windows users?
No Kool-aid for me. I’m strictly a sweet tea drinker, but I’m all aboard for the rest.
well, “Like it or not”,
“the great majority of people who care about technology” are coroporate drones haven’t come up with a technology they really cared about in a long time. they are interested in doing what everyone else is doing, which IMHO means you will never be better than anyone else. That is the definition of MS Windows in a nutshell.
It seems to me that the only folks who *are* really caring about technology, have Macs, Linux or other non-beige/black box on their desk. The others are giving you the “thousand yard” stare or lovin’ the life of monkeying with dll hell.
Even writers with nothing to write about realize that the iPhone frenzy is the one opportunity they have to get their name in the spotlight. So they write articles about the iPhone filled with nothing.
Now excuse me while I go and pray to Sri Sri Mahatranscendental Guruji The Holy Exalted One Mgr. Steven Jobs in my Temple of The Mac (No Forbidden Apples there, I tell you!) . . . . . .
Shrimsley sounds a lot like a Neo-Con to me.
I drank the Kool-Aid and am damn happy I did!
God I hate this “Mac users are a cult” thing.
If there is a cult of brainless sheep in the world it’s Windows users.
They put up with all the instability problems, security issues, etc, etc., and _STILL_ refuse to even peek at anything that might be better. MSFT has them brainwashed and they don’t even know it!
I thought it was hilarious.
Long, long ago, I wrote a liturgy for the Macintosh for a coworker who was a Mac fanatic. It included a declaration of faith (“…and Steve Jobs is its Profit”) a few hymns, including Hymn 6502, and the Apple Creed. The prayer of confession asked for forgiveness for having used MS-DOS. The service ended with the officiant “making the sign of the Apple.” He thought it was hysterical and even made it the Mac’s wallpaper.
Lighten up and laugh a little.
While I do believe there are many Apple fans that overly fervent and believe Jobs can do no wrong, it is also a huge overstatement to say that all Apple loyalists are in a cult. I love Apple because they make well designed products that are easy to use. Unabashed Apple loyalist.
However, douchebags like Shrimsley and Dvorak now want to paint everyone that owns an iPod with the same brush. However, I know many iPod owners that are still vocal Windows advocates. Sure, iPod owners are getting a taste of Apple hardware and software, but that does not mean they are rabidly pro-Apple.
The iPhone is in the same category. People are drawn to it because it is a cool tech toy. Like the iPod, they are free to view it outside the prism of OSX marketshare that clouds they minds of many people in regard to Macs.
When the author referred to the iPhone as “the holy handset,” did anyone else picture the scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail with the holy hand grenade?
@G Spank,
Dang, I thought Shrimsley sounded a lot like a “progressive”! (Read that “knee-jerk liberal.”)
Hmmm.
FT = Forbes in many ways. The represent big business, they support big business, small and medium businesses are good only for fodder to be taken over by big business.
What they would like most is to beat Apple’s share price down then it be bought by some private equity group. They would have a plan something like sell iPhone to Moto, iPod to Sandisk, OSX to Dell and the Apple brand to Packard Bell.
That would generate lots of commissions, so what if it harmed the consumer.
MDN: Start publishing the authors email address below the article link. That way we can decide whether to give them hits that they desire, or something that pays a little less – lots of corrective email.
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Well if liking Apple’s products is a cult, then liking Microsoft’s products is a mental illness.
Every windozzz user out there needs their head examined by a shrink.
Let’s look at the symptoms of your average windozz nut-case;
– Feels the urge to always punish themselves
– Obsessed with wiping their pc harddrive on a weekly basis
– Always searching for that ‘utopian’ anti-virus tool that will clear up and protect their harddrives from the 100,000+ windows malware
– Has never had a girlfriend
– Even though they are 40+ years old they still live their parents
– Work in a deadend grey job (e.g. the government or civil service)
– Hate everything about Apple
– Have nude posters of Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer on their walls.
There you go – your average Financial Times Reporter Profile!