Apple - The College Campaign

In the last few months we have been bombarded with some of the most annoying ads on television. Whether it is John McCain or Barack Obama, Kilroy or Stivers (here in Ohio) and Apple or PC?

At first I was rather annoyed by any and all of the political ads. Now, I have a new pet peeve - Apple.

They started with the Mac/PC commercials (which I think are hilarious and true in many ways...even as a dedicated PC user). I live in Athens, Ohio - Home of Ohio University. Every time I am "uptown" I usually end up going to the local hot spot, Donkey Coffee and Espresso. While I must admit I enjoy the cozy nature of the shop I am also starting to become rather disenchanted (and no, it isn't all the hippies).

Each time I go in there I am greeted by five to ten college students and their glowing MacBooks. Usually they are trying to look like they are working intently on some type of masterpiece or screenplay. Actually, now that I think about it- they most resemble a sad fraternity of techno-greek life.

Recently I realized that they are all victims of a cruel campaign that is feeding on their ignorance of the issues.

While McCain and Obama both depend on certain portions of society to believe every word that comes tumbling out of their mouth, so does Apple.

Apple has become the angry third party in a two party system. Unfortunatley the two parties have been PC or Nothing for many years.

Apple managed to win over the hearts and minds of schools in the 1990's. I remember how it felt to have something new and shiny in my classes. Then, after playing Oregon Trail and typing a few things in 5th grade I realized that I missed playing Doom and being able to 'right click' my parents PC (This was the same time when 256 MB hard drives were AMAZINGLY HUGE).

Even at that point Apple still wasn't taking a real marketshare.

Then came the MP3 and the iPod. Apple found a way into the hearts and minds of teens everywhere. Afterall, someone had to give the kids something to play their stolen music on and CD players just couldn't hold all of those half-assed auto-tuned singles of the late 1990s and early 2000s.

Once the iPod became the most popular thing in the teenage mind it was only a matter of time before they started asking for anything else Apple created. Once these kids went off to college it was all a matter of convincing their parents that Macbooks were what they needed for college.

Mission accomplished.

Now you can go into any coffeeshop in college towns everywhere and you will see a trendy college student listening to their iPod while they work on the next Britney Spears single.