Is there an understanding which unites Mac users which goes beyond other brand loyalties?

September 7, 2004 1:33 AM

Is there an unspoken brotherhood/sisterhood of mac users?[More Inside.]

Please excuse my question if it seems naive or even pointless. In my country (Portugal), the computer you use isn't socially relevant, apart from macs being more expensive. However, I have the feeling that elsewhere there's a certain credo and steadfastness (call it that) among mac users. I'd guess - in general! - more liberal and left-of-centre; more frivolous and playful; less conformist.

My query, however (which bears on an article I've been asked to write) is a little wider: is there a sense of community; a willingness to help and cooperate; an understanding which unites mac users which goes beyond other brand loyalties? I know I feel it; even on MetaFilter.

So, is there a mac ethos? What is the stereotype of the mac user in the U.S., Canada and the world at large? Can it really be that of the "creative, unconformist, independent, gay, outsider,older. rich Hollywood/Madison Avenue/designer guy or girl"? Does the majority resent this strange bond? Or is it all a load of ballyhoo and hype?

Any opinions will be dearly welcomed and appreciated.

posted by MiguelCardoso to society & culture (36 answers total)

The first rule of Mac club is you do not talk about Mac club.

But I think community is really prevalent in all 'minority' computing communities, such as Linux (and especially the BSD's).
posted by PenDevil at 2:14 AM on September 7, 2004

Ignoring the first two rules of Mac club, there certainly is a community of mac users. We are often quite vocal (online) about our computer preference, and make efforts to recruit new members which we expect could make positive contributions to the community.

As you go about your research, be aware that there are three very distinct groups of apple users:

(1) Apple / Apple II users. These people used (and sometimes still use) the first Apple products. They often had to write their own software, or choose to do so for fun. Many were hobbiests, though with the introduction of Word Processors and Spreadsheets, the Apple became a professional tool as well.

(2) Macintosh "System" users. These people adopted one of the first commercially successful GUI systems, the Apple Macintosh. This system was radically different from the Apple II in that hardware experimentation was strongly discouraged and software development often required a professional's skill level. The Macintosh introduced desktop publishing to the masses.

(3) Macintosh "OS X" users. These people either moved from the old Mac "System" (the last version of which was 9.x) or, possibly just as frequently, from Unix systems like Linux, BSD, or even Unix Workstations like Sun's SPARC or SGIs systems. OS X continues to support graphics-oriented work, but also provides an excellent environment for developers of enterprise and telecom software (the traditional domains of Unix).

You may want to read Neal Stephenson's In the Beginning was the Command Line. It provides a reasonable cultural background of Windows vs. Mac vs. Linux. I'm not sure if Stephenson covers OS X though.

Finally, there are many other systems with active communities such as the Commodore and Amiga. At the corporate level, people certainly develop loyalties to brands like Sun, IBM and SGI. You just don't see much cultural manifestations of these loyalties.
posted by b1tr0t at 2:32 AM on September 7, 2004

Is there a "brotherhood/sisterhood"? Yes.

"Unspoken"? I think not!
posted by John Shaft at 3:10 AM on September 7, 2004

Wow, b1trOt, thanks a million - your answer was not only useful but alsol an enlightened brief history of usage which I can work with, whilst introducing a chronological/typological framework which I'd missed entirely.

John Shaft: Thanks for your point, which is indeed justified by the forthright nature of mac users on any board. I was looking more for (let's say) an ideological likeness; a common awareness; something definite. Why are mac users worldwide instantly attracted to each other and, more important, tend to have similar opinions and even political viewpoints?

PenDevil: Granted. But there's something specific to mac users (as I'm sure there is to other minorities, such as those you mention) which may perhaps be unique or characteristic. What are those features, if any?
posted by MiguelCardoso at 3:25 AM on September 7, 2004

Secret society? What secret society?

*scans room, makes secret sign, winks at other members when Miguel isn't looking*

Seriously though, b1tr0t's comments are interesting, especially re. OS X users; and I'd also make a distinction between desktops and laptops. Informally over the past two years I've seen (technical) project meetings increasingly fill up with iBooks and PowerBooks; they're often a majority now. I think (informally) this may be due to the early adoption of internal Wifi cards, and perhaps the terminal application. Meetings go so much faster when you can e-mail and work at the same time.
posted by carter at 4:36 AM on September 7, 2004

The actual term for this brotherhood is "cult brand." Apple goes to a lot of trouble to make you feel like you're part of a community. So do other companies, like GM with its Saturn line.

Remember that your brotherhood is one built on consumer preference and nothing else. It's innocuous now, but one day Steve Jobs is going to ask you to drink the Kool Aid. Will you be ready?
posted by Mayor Curley at 4:40 AM on September 7, 2004

The Mac Community is defined by most Mac user's astonishment that people can actually tolerate Windows + a dose of ego stimulation.

I belong to this club, and am proud
posted by ParisParamus at 5:02 AM on September 7, 2004

I don't know about brotherhood or sisterhood or anything but there is a willingness to exchange information and help each other out. I've used a Macintosh for 10 years or so off and on. The willingness to exchange information is important because quite often your normal avenues for support aren't available. For instance where I work now we use a Cisco VPN solution. There's client software available for Windows, Linux and MacOS. My day to day machine is a MacOS box so to log into work all I would need is the Cisco client for MacOS. Fine, but our I/S department refused to provide it. They provided but wouldn't support linux but had to go that extra little step and refuse to even provide it for MacOS.

It eventually got resolved because a little birdie in the I/S department who also happened to be a Macintosh user told me a URL where I could aquire it.

Mayor Curley brings up another point, Macintosh users are seen as members of a cult or exclusive club. I don't know that it's Apple that really started this. If somebody asks me about fixing Windows registries or something I usually mention that I don't know much about Windows, I use a Mac. This is often followed up by comments that it's not a real computer by a person less capable with a computer than I am with a calculator. All modesty aside, I design circuits for some of the most powerful damned computers on the planet.

So is there a cult? Maybe, but it's defined by the derision heaped on by Windows users so in away it's an anti-cult.

Linux has it's own community too and I'm part of that one as well. It's different though, it's often less friendly. Read The Fucking Manual is an acceptable response to a newbie even if what's asked isn't even in the manual or is contradictory.
posted by substrate at 5:03 AM on September 7, 2004

I feel that in a general sense if you went in to a lot of trouble to pick out your computer, whatever brand it was, you'd be a little zealous about it and want to share. I know more people who chose their Mac deliberately than who chose their Windows boxes/laptops. Linux communities are a lot like this, especially noticable when you're complaining about something that your Windows PC is doing, the response [besides usually at least some helpfulness] is "You know, Linux doesn't have that problem." The same is true for Mac users.

It has gone fairly unreported, but most of the viruses and whatnot that are a scourge to PC users often pass by Mac/Linux users completely. They exploit holes in either the Windows operating system, or Windows programs [specifically Outlook and/or Exchange servers]. People with Macs, even badly configured Macs, rarely have these problems. So, when I go to my Dad's house and troubleshoot yet another browser hijack or trojan horse invasion of his PC network and I say "You know, you might want to get a Mac" it's not just me being brand snobbish or conscious, it's also just pointing out that the brand I use often has these characteristics.

We're a rare dual [triple when the Linux box is working] household so we don't have the uber-Mac fascination -- where you own the stock, have the sticker on your car, buy the extra holsters and color coded desk furniture -- but I like mine, like talking shop with other Mac users, and answer questions like this. For what it's worth, I fall into group 2 of b1tr0t's taxonomy and was drawn to Macs early on because they had a graphical interface when PCs basically did not. I have a Mac now because I used to be a Linux user that was a bit too over my head in the Linux world, but I like being able to get at a command line when I need to. I don't necessarily think that the "political viewpoint" angle really has any credence except that Macs are generally a bit more expensive and a bit more design-y so you'll find more people buying them who have some surplus cash and/or will pay more for form as well as function. This often slops in to other parts of the Mac users lifestyle [more design-y dress, more design-y furniture, more design-y office?] but this is a feature of the Mac ads more than the product itself. Apple definitely has an idea of what sorts of people own their machines, and aggressively advertises to them, but I find that the reality of Mac users is that they're becoming much more ubiquitous now. You can make far fewer generalizations about people who use them than maybe you once could.
posted by jessamyn at 5:19 AM on September 7, 2004

I think it stems from the idea of being part of something subversive. With the company starting out from a garage, along with the early support and reliance of shareware, many users feel they're still participating in a grassroots movement. Apple's niche in the computing/electronics/design markets help reinforce the notion of it existing as an underdog and pioneer alike.

Another factor to count in are the various user interface issues common to different platforms. Poeple will often favor the features they prefer - ease of use, customizable preference settings, etc. - and will side with other like-minded types in criticising/denouncing users of Brand X as somehow inferoir.

While Commodore has faded away, and operating systems such as DOS, OS/2 and BeOS have disappeared, the Apple's software, in its various forms has remained. As part of the brand itself, it's as much an image as it is a concept, much like Sony, Porsche or any other corporate marquee. You can't buy anything related to Apple without advertising the company at the same time. And due partially to its "bohemian cred", many folks are more than glad to evangelise.


One must also account for the air of refinement many of the products have enjoyed. Apple has carefully arranged for high-end outfits to assist in the creation and selling of their products. Bose, Harmon Kardon, FrogDesign - the same businesses which worked with Porsche over the years - have given manufactured technology an element of ubiquitious, accessible - even desireable - cool.
posted by Smart Dalek at 5:51 AM on September 7, 2004

Ten years ago, you could probably make generalizations like these and they'd have some truth to them, but after the switch campaign and the cheap ibooks and imacs, Macs just became another basic kind of computer that is a bit more expensive than others.

There is no secret club. There is no typical mac user. You can't predict their politics.

It's just a dumb computer with certain plastic bits inside that are slightly different from every other computer, and the software is slightly different.

Seriously, I find this ridiculous and I'm sure readers would call you on it if you printed some profile of someone that typifies a mac user and claimed they're part of a secret society. It's just a bundle of transistors running software, not a lifestyle choice.
posted by mathowie at 6:39 AM on September 7, 2004

heh. i'm the only person (here at work) that runs windows. people look at the screen and ask what it is. it's hip to be square.


on topic: it is a lifestyle choice - for people who think that it will make them more like mathowie. seriously. it's a second wave thing - early adopters/design geeks were the first users. they gave the brand its credibility. now that's being used as an image for people who wouldn't know a command line if they crossed it. meanwhile, matt (along with me and my win2k+cygwin) is on the third wave, where it's just a tool...
posted by andrew cooke at 7:19 AM on September 7, 2004

Lifestyle choice? No way -- unless it's a lifestyle choice to conciously choose a computer that has strong underpinnings, an inherent lack of vulnerability to the vast majority of the crap out there and looks good while running well. There is no "typical" Mac user. The only thing you could possibly say that we all unquestionably have in common is good taste.
posted by Dreama at 7:24 AM on September 7, 2004

A fair amount of the brotherhood - in terms of people being defensive of Apple, and antagonistic of their critics - can be attributed to the advent of the Evangelist. It was a mailing list created by Guy Kawasaki while he was at Apple (mid-90's) with the explicit purpose of countering the bad news Apple was routinely facing.

The list marked a strange time for Apple, where they shifted marketing gimmicks from doing traditional ads to empowering the user base to evangelize on their own. They offered free video tapes, CD-ROMs, posters, all sorts of stuff - so long as you were going to use them to advocate the platform.

The list was killed in 1999 after Apple's "stunning turnaround"; many users splintered off into the MacMarines list, which seems to have self-destructed since as well.

There's a good summary of the Evangelist in this Wired News article.
posted by Remy at 8:06 AM on September 7, 2004

this sums it up
posted by jeb at 8:21 AM on September 7, 2004

The only thing you could possibly say that we all unquestionably have in common is good taste.

Yeah, well that's something. When two Mac users meet, they have at least that much in common.

It's just the same thing that happens with people who own Volkswagen vans, particular types of motorcycles, sailboats, musical instruments, religions, diseases, whatever. In each case there's probably a club you can join; and by virtue of owning, believing, or otherwise having a particular thing, you're automatically eligible for membership. So naturally there's some sense of community. Any noticable characteristic can result in this kind of transient tribal bonding, as long as it's sufficiently unusual in the social context. Two Americans who otherwise might have nothing much in common might feel some kinship if they happen to meet in Tokyo.

Apple tries to help this tendancy along through its marketing, but the basic human instinct they're taking advantage of is not so uncommon. Computers and cars are the largest, most complex products that almost everyone uses, so it makes sense that they're big targets for this kind of thing. It will stop working when the Apple brand gets too popular, or too indistinguishable from their competition as a whole. Also, it doesn't work (much) on linux users, since we're even more elite.
posted by sfenders at 8:26 AM on September 7, 2004

When it was introduced, Apple tried to market the Mac as a countercultural computer. The user-friendly GUI not only cut corporate training costs, but it Brought Computers To the People. I read somewhere that Apple ran an advertisement for the Mac that showed a Macintosh being used as a bookend for Marx and Engels. When Jobs came back onboard in 1997 or so and the "Think Different" campaign began, this image came back:

Here’s to the crazy ones.

The misfits.

The rebels.

The troublemakers.
...
We make tools for these kinds of people.

It's all marketing, though. I know Rush Limbaugh used to be a Mac user (maybe he still is).
posted by profwhat at 8:29 AM on September 7, 2004

I actually think a case can be made for the "lifestyle choice" position, or something like it.

I've been using a Mac since the 128K came out. Over the past few years, as computers and even specific programs have become more important in our lives, your choice of computer does have larger ramifications.

One obvious point is gaming. Macs are clearly second-class citizens when it comes to games. If you are a Mac-only user, you don't place a priority on fast-twitch gaming.

Another point that affects me has emerged over the past three or four years. I'm a translator, and a lot of potential clients not only demand that you work in MS Word, they demand that you work in a specific version of Word because they don't want to deal with any potential formatting problems at their end. So there's a whole swath of potential clients that won't talk to me. There are others that also demand you use a specific translation-memory tool (only available for Windows, bien sur), so that's more work that's theoretically off-limits to me (though for other reasons, that's less of an issue).

These are not exactly Mac-specific issues they're minority-platform issues. The Mac is, I think, the majority-minority platform, so they're most obvious with it.

Brand identification is another point, and I think Matt dismisses it too readily. A pair of jeans is just a pair of jeans, but the people who buy Wranglers are not the same people who buy Guess: you can make some pretty safe assumptions about what those people are like. A car is just a car, but a Volvo and a BMW each suggest different traits for the people driving them. (I, of course, am completely above such superficialities as labels). But the fact that Rush Limbaugh and Paris Paramus are both ardent Mac users suggests that Macs cross political lines pretty readily.

Macs are pretty entrenched in a lot of design agencies. This is probably a historical artifact: Macs were once clearly ahead of Windows in terms of design software. Not so much anymore, but the habit lives on, for any of a number of reasons: momentum, familiarity, the fact that the computers themselves are more design-y. The fact that Macs have a pretty well-established constituency with designers may have helped create the image Miguel observes.
posted by adamrice at 8:51 AM on September 7, 2004

I was going to say no, but I thought about it and realized that from time to time, I've given cred to folks who demonstrated they understood the benefits of the Mac platform -- and gained it. There are so many PC users out there who simply say "Macs suck!" and leave it at that, and you sortof avoid eye contact and leave it at that, because confrontations like that are pointless. When you find a fellow user who "gets it," it is kindof nice.

My favorite boss in recent memory: Stanford grad, former Sun Engineer, bought Macs so he could do IT for the whole of his wife's growing company (and did). We liked to talk about Apple products and what they were doing right and wrong.
posted by weston at 9:58 AM on September 7, 2004

So I guess I don't see the mac cult being a force anymore because I've never owned a mac until two years ago. For those that have been using them since the mac classic days, I can see why they'd say it was still a big part of being a mac owner.

I just bought it because I wanted to play with a unix-like platform that was more user-friendly than linux. And though I have an ipod too, but I'm definitely not "one of the devoted."
posted by mathowie at 10:36 AM on September 7, 2004

I would second adamrice's observations on the Mac as entrenched in design (and design compatible) environments. Because Macs were once ahead and are still pretty, designers use them. That means people like me, who do words around or inside the pretty pictures use them. When I worked for a large corporation, everyone but the creatives had PCs. We got Macs. So it isn't really surprising that others look at that and think, "Mac users are creative." Then someone who fancies herself creative gets a Mac, and soon you have a whole big brand as signifier of personality. It's a little true and a little not.
posted by dame at 10:40 AM on September 7, 2004

I've used Macs, Amigas, IRIX, and Windows extensively, mostly for animation, design, video editing, print work, etc. To most of the people I've worked with, the system they use is simply a preference and I find it proposterous to assign any sort of common or community profile or personality to a user (or users) of any type of system. We're creative types strikes me as we're pompous. Having said that, people purchase things for a wide variety of reasons, and if they actually believe that they're cooler for owning a Mac or Lada then so be it.

On rare occassions I've come across people who are astounded that I use InDesign or Dreamweaver for example, on Windows. They insist that I would work much better and be "more creative" on a Mac. Pardon me I respond, but you can have your workflow and preferences, and I can have mine. What's the problem? The creative element is not in the computer but in me.

What follows is a bizarre string of assumptions such as you kneel before Microsoft (InDesign instead of Publisher, Dreamweaver instead of FrontPage is kneeling before Microsoft?) and there are alternates to Office and Explorer (which you obviously must use.) Except I don't. Then I'm often told that my PC is great for games, but you'd be better off doing real work on a Mac and buying a PS2. I can do real work on any computer and I don't care for consoles. Again, what's the big deal?

I'd say this type of user is merely a reflection of the different types of personalities society wide and DO NOT for a moment associate their use of say Mac OS X, Windows, or Linux with their prescriptive personality. Very much in the same manner that it's rather pointless to associate a type of personality with the left or right, or indeed, that a person holds a particular opinion because he/she is a lefty or a righty.

Usually it's amusing but sometimes it's a little peculiar. But, as in many things, the loudest voices often get the most attention.
posted by juiceCake at 11:15 AM on September 7, 2004

I'm part of b1tr0t's third wave of Mac users: I come from a Unix/Linux background, but I got sick of having a laptop that only sort of worked, or took hours and hours of effort to get working with a standard Linux distribution. I've been waiting for a laptop like the OS X powerbook for years. I nearly broke into tears of joy the first time I ran gcc from a command prompt on top of that beautiful graphical desktop.

There's going to be a lot of migration to OS X Macs among users in technical fields in the next few years. Windows never really caught on among some groups of technical users; those who are still using Solaris or Linux systems are going to start migrating directly to Apple.

That said, I still love Linux, know it like the back of my hand, and will probably always keep it running on at least one machine.
posted by mr_roboto at 11:27 AM on September 7, 2004

There used to be a Mac Users Group aka M.U.G. (tee hee) but apparently it's morphed into this.
posted by Lynsey at 11:43 AM on September 7, 2004

For what it's worth, I'm an INTP, and I use a Mac; and all the INTPs that I know use Macs. Just a thought.
posted by bitpart at 11:46 AM on September 7, 2004

juiceCake: I'm not sure if that was pointed at me or the phenomenon in general, but you do know I was explaining how I see the roots of "Mac as creative computer," not justifying them?
posted by dame at 12:17 PM on September 7, 2004

Don't forget sex appeal - the OSX interface is the most elegant and functional that I've ever used (and I've used a few). Add to that the hardware build-out - to pop open the hood of a G5 is to view a piece of art. A quick look and you'll see why Apple is the Rolls-Royce of computing.

Plus, there has been a tremendous rise in the amount of DIY audio / visual productions in the last ten years, a vein in which Apple and the mac line of production software fit in well, with the DV revolution now enabling true video auteurism, coupled with many musicians producing and mixing their own pieces, there's an ample line of tools to support the new creative class.

I work in video post-production, and am now able to accomplish with a $3500 G5 what only a few years ago it would have taken a $60,000 editing suite to do. Sure, you can argue that many PC's have the same capability, but from a 'off-the-shelf' usability standpoint, the mac wins hands down. Keeping that in mind, I view social relevance as a parenthetical departure.
posted by jazzkat11 at 12:22 PM on September 7, 2004

Here is a good example: I'm at a party standing next to two people, neither of whom I know very well. We get into the usual talk about jobs. I say I'm a web designer. The talk shifts to computers. Person A mentions a problem they are having with their PC. Although I use PCs at work, I tell them I'm not sure what the problem is. Person B mentions thier Mac. Person B and I start talking Mac stuff. Person A leaves to find another conversation.

Secret society. (It actually happened.)
posted by strangeleftydoublethink at 1:20 PM on September 7, 2004

juiceCake: I'm not sure if that was pointed at me or the phenomenon in general, but you do know I was explaining how I see the roots of "Mac as creative computer," not justifying them?

Wasn't pointed at anyone, just an example of the extreme groupie. I'm well aware that the Mac, NeXT, Amiga, etc. were well ahead in the GUI department and that whole industries arose because of them well before they moved to Windows, but then I'm also aware that Peugot were first to develop the dual overhead camshaft system but that's not particularly relevant anymore...
posted by juiceCake at 1:46 PM on September 7, 2004

It's hardly a secret society. Harley riders are likely to give each other the high sign, the two people at a party who are restoring their old Victorian home will probably wind up talking, at one point you could find strangers with Palm Pilots striking up conversations and beaming software back and forth. The whole thing is merely a matter of having something in common.

However, there's relatively little common across the various subgroups identified by b1tr0t: as a member of the(3) group, I couldn't give two shits about what the (2) group is doing with their hardware or how creative it makes them; I bought a commercial UNIX platform because it is of high quality and is well-tested and well-supported on the target hardware.

That the desktop enviroment is a rough port of the Mac UI to NextStep is kind of incidental -- it could be KDE or GNOME for all I care, although with some modifications I'm perfectly pleased with Apple's proprietary stuff. The Aldus/Adobe/Macromedia/Claris heritage of designey arty stuff on the Mac is pretty much meaningless to me where it might be of the utmost importance to some other Apple customer.
posted by majick at 1:51 PM on September 7, 2004

Except, juiceCake, it's easier to switch car brands than operating systems. I can use a PC, but to do so I have to relearn things that have become second nature on my Mac. It isn't the most difficult thing in the world, not by a long shot, but it's a pain and I'd rather spend that time doing something else.
posted by dame at 2:00 PM on September 7, 2004

> (1) Apple / Apple II users. These people used (and sometimes still use)
> the first Apple products. They often had to write their own software, or choose
> to do so for fun.

My App][ runs just fine, presently working as a Linux terminal (just for the 'ell of it, of course, it's just a cute little antique now.) I missed out on the later secret societies (and fruit-loop colors) due to switching to Intel boxes when the first Mac came out. Motive was that I found I could build a PC-clone without using any IBM-brand parts but could not build a Hackintosh without using any Apple-brand parts. Since then I've run dual-boot homebuilts with parallel streams of OSs, DOS-->Win3-->95/8-->2000-->XP on one side and Minix-->System V Unix-->Slackware Linux-->Redhat on the other.

I'm still happy to sit with any other Apple ][ owner I happen to encounter and jabber about 6502 assembler, page 0 memory tricks, What's Where in the Apple, etc. I find I don't have all that much in common with Mac folks, especially the arts/graphics crowd--how many of them do any assembly language programming?

(I do paint a bit, but for that I use Windsor & Newton oils.)
posted by jfuller at 2:24 PM on September 7, 2004

"derision heaped on by Windows users so in a way it's an anti-cult."

All the folks in my office, including Unix and Windows SAs, Windows desktop guys, Solaris engineers, C++ and Java developers, a VB guy, IT support people, web developers, a couple of the die-hard MS certified types who know only what the crash courses taught them, and a few enterprise systems architects have been quite impressed with my Mac when they came to check out the shiny thing sitting on my desk.

Perhaps if my demo routine were merely flipping around in some Adobe products this audience would be fairly unimpressed, but instead I give a somewhat more developer- and Unix-oriented tour -- highlighting XCode and a couple of the nicer Java IDEs (Eclipse and Together ControlCenter), a quick flip through the framework API docs, demonstrating SMB and NFS mounting and authentication against the existing Windows AD infrastructure, and then popping open Terminal and saying "hey, look, it's a Unix laptop" -- and quite a few folks have walked away muttering that they ought to get one.

The only derision I've received is from a hardcore gamer friend who, when pressed, admitted that he's sneering at the crappy selection of titles rather than the platform itself. Given that his idea of a good computer is one that gets the highest frame rate in Doom 3, well, yeah, he's not going to be all that amazed by a Mac. That's no skin off my teeth.

In any case, I suspect it's more of the Group (2) people who get derision from Windows folks, and I'm not surprised. When your choice of platform stems from "well, Photoshop used be somewhat nicer on the Mac in the olden days, and we had PageMaker (or XPress or whatever) before everyone else did," well, you're kind of leaving yourself open to harassment.
posted by majick at 2:54 PM on September 7, 2004

Except, juiceCake, it's easier to switch car brands than operating systems. I can use a PC, but to do so I have to relearn things that have become second nature on my Mac. It isn't the most difficult thing in the world, not by a long shot, but it's a pain and I'd rather spend that time doing something else.

Well yes, of course, and vice versa. Indeed habits that become second nature are often mistakenly extended to others who have different habits and different, er, second natures. Usually not an issue unless someone fails to realize and respect the fact that others have different likes, dislikes, and working methods, and that when they do differ, it hardly matters. Hence, I repeat, such people are usually in the minority and are in no way representative of the majority of people who use whatever system they happen to be using. The very notion of equating a system with a personality or group of like-people, a brotherhood, as it were, strikes me as odd. I could be wrong of course.

I have friends who use Macs, Linux, Windows, and no computers whatsoever. They are largely creative, vindicative, hilarious, passive, aggressive, whatever, because that's who they are. The computer has no more to do it with it then the variety of cell phone systems (with different GUIs) they have.

However, my point had nothing to do with switching computer systems, but rather the fact that system x was first to the table with feature a, which system y now has, means no more to me than the fact that my Toyota has a dual overhead cam engine even though Peugot developed it first. I've been told that I should be using a Mac for my Photoshop work because the Mac had a GUI and Photoshop well before Windows was around. The implication is clear, somehow I can't use Photoshop as well as they can because it's the Windows version (and I've used the IRIX version as well.) Nonsense. How well I use Photoshop is down to my own abilities are lack thereof. When I tell them I drive a Toyota I don't hear these individuals harping on me about how I should own a real car, like a Peugot. Why don't the same, ahh, principles, apply I wonder.

Why would they care what I use or how I use it beyond a helpful suggestion such as this keyboard shortcut does this? I get the feeling that these "loud" voices who tell people that others are missing out on the "real" experience might give the impression that there is some unspoken brotherhood/sisterhood. I dont' believe it. I still say that sort is in the minority and hardly constitutes a brotherhood. Else one of the print companies I freelance for would be at each others throats and divided into platform factions.

I look forward to the day when platformism is no longer factor!
posted by juiceCake at 3:43 PM on September 7, 2004

You almost intuited it straight off in your question, Miguel:

Mac::PC as Canada::USA

The Macintosh "community" holds boundless pride in its differences from that which it so fully resembles.
posted by NortonDC at 5:29 PM on September 7, 2004

"Is there an unspoken brotherhood/sisterhood of mac users?" - Those who know of this do not speak, and those who speak of it never really know.
posted by troutfishing at 9:24 PM on September 7, 2004