A worm in the Apple: iPod nation and the cult of cool

Also at Slate, media critic Jack Shafer points out that Apple -- as in: the Mac, the Cube, the iPod -- isn't quite everything it's cracked up to be. Or, rather, its much-ballyhooed products aren't:

I don't hate Apple. I don't even hate Apple-lovers. I do, however, possess deep odium for the legions of Apple polishers in the press corps who salute every shiny gadget the company parades through downtown Cupertino as if they were members of the Supreme Soviet viewing the latest ICBMs at the May Day parade...

The inordinate amount of attention paid to Apple's launches must be, in part, a function of the company's skill at throwing media events, stoking the rumor mills, and seducing the consuming masses. All this, plus the chatter-inducing creativity of Apple's ad campaigns, and its practice of putting its machines in pretty boxes make writing about Apple products more interesting than assessing the latest iterations of the ThinkPad or Microsoft Office.

Sure, Apple's a trend-setter, and its products look cool (and perhaps are cool), but Shafer points out that there's a good deal of effective manipulation behind the image that's been projected onto popular culture -- to the point where Apple loyalists have become a cult of their own and where everyone seems to have (or want) those white wires coming out of their ears.

Personally, I like (and use) Dell. Is there anything wrong with that?

Maybe I'm just not cool enough. Or maybe -- just maybe -- I haven't been manipulated into submission.

(I'll have to ask Apple loyalist and sometime Reaction contributor Vivek Krishnamurthy for a rebuttal. Feel free to provide your own.)