Orwellian Apple ad celebrates 25th birthday Today marks the 25th anniversary of Apple's iconic 1984 TV ad. And no, we haven't got our math wrong. Apple's introduction to the Macintosh - widely hailed by the overly-excitable as one of the greatest advertisements in the history of television - did not debut during the nationwide TV feeding frenzy of the 1984 Super Bowl. …
In a Palo Alto living room, we all anticipated the advert during Superbowl XVIII.
In a Palo Alto living room, we all yawned.
We all still yawn. Apple computers are still just computers. They crunch ones and zeros, just like all other (digital) computers. Why do people fawn over them? Or any other computer, for that matter?
Get a fscking LIFE, fer crissake!
Now tell me when you get on any bus or train these days, or simply walk about the streets, what do you see? Legions of morons with little white headphones all plugged in listening to the lastest X-Factor or Coldplay claptrap, all wired in and subservient to the lord and master Steve "Polo-Neck, Dance Teacher" Jobs and his enslavement devices!
1984 happened, just not quite the way Mr Orwell had in mind.
Orwell wasn't writing about the future. He was writing about the Then.
He had been a Communist but due to Spanish Civil war and the "Communists" even shooting their own, he later realised that what Russia, China etc had wasn't Communism. It was a tirade against Fascism and Communism.
Wilfred Greatorex's 1990 is closer to real prophetic writing, and while assuming a "conservative" type Government, the real Nu Labour of Blair....
Or maybe Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. Where reading & books is illegal.
There are several cults of blind zealots all marching in step, including but not limited to:
• a tiny subset of Mac users;
• a tiny subset of Windows users;
• a tiny subset of Linux users;
• a tiny subset of XBox users;
• a tiny subset of Playstation users;
• a tiny subset of ATI video card owners; and
• a tiny subset of NVidia video card owners.
It seems that zealotish cults come with the IT territory.
Reading the comments is sometimes more interesting than the article.
Article 'X', blah blah blah X.
Comment 1: PCs suck!
Comment 2: Macs rule!
Comment 3: I'm still using version 0.99b of slackware linux that I installed with 52 floppies.
Comment 4: I'm a PC and I crash/rock/reboot.
Comment 5: Actually, 'X' is spelt wrong / was first used in 1968 blah blah.
Comment 6: Did you see those tits.
Everyone is a gem, priceless. For the record, I'm with the guy about the tits. Nice one.
Well, yes, but if we substituted 'fuckface' for every word on this site then it would be really rude, silly.
I'm no great supporter of religious rights but still, it's a pretty offensive comparison, don't you think? It's a bloody consumer preference. Don't get so lofty about it.
Am I the only person who thinks this ad is not the best ad ever? I couldn't tell you which one is, but it's certainly not this one. Most of my fellow Ameritards think of 1984 in terms of Footloose and Ghostbusters. In 1984, the climate was that of cold war and nationalism not of anti-establishment. And they played the ad during the superbowl. How many wankdribbles watching this ad had any idea who Orwell was. And IBM and computers? Are they serious? It's one of those smugtard ads where if you get it you can chuckle to yourself about how better than everyone else you are.
Maybe the US government can do an advertisement spoof on Grapes of Wrath where Hank Paulson plays the role of Rose of Sharon and feeds failing banks and automakers from his teat. huh huh *smug chuckle* isn't that so creative? *smug chuckle*
1). If a girl looking like that had thrown a hammer like that, it would have hit the guy in row five on the back of the head, somewhat spoiling the effect; unless of course she was Russian, built like a bulldog and with a face like a dropped pie.
2). Tiiiiiiiiiits!
Paris, because she can swing my hammer any time she likes and, um, er, tiiiiiiits!
"I'm no great supporter of religious rights but still, it's a pretty offensive comparison, don't you think? It's a bloody consumer preference. Don't get so lofty about it."
Uh ... but it's true, Sarah. The Mac/PC/Sun/whatever fanbois are basing their strong opinion on faith alone. They have obviously never used a large quantity of equipment or OS. If they had, they wouldn't be fanbois ... or fangrrls, if you like.
We use math instead of maths because we never use mathematic (singular) as a noun, only the plural mathematics. So when shortening it, we simply shorten it to math.
An example of something we do use in both the plural and singular is yankee; thus you have a yank or several yanks.
I could just as easily (and more logically) ask: Why do Brits say "maths" instead of "math"? It isn't mathSematics, but mathematics. Why omit the e, m, a, t, i, and c, but then put on an unnecessary 's'? We also refer to Economics as econ, rather than econs. (Physics is short enough already).
Abbreviating it to math is 20% more efficient, and mathematicians are all about efficiency.
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