Those goddamn I'm a Mac vs. I'm a PC ads

Search the boards, didn't find any frustrations with the commercials specifically there so I'm venting.

I'm somewhat partial to Macs myself, and the initial commercials made me laugh (pointing out that PCs can freeze or catch viruses, etc.). They've gone downhill, though. The one I just watched had imitation Christmas claymation characters decorating trees and the PC guy spelling out "PC Rules" in Christmas tree lights. Is he just a strawman/punching bag now as an annoying character? Is he the reason we should buy Apple? And is his name actually just "PC" now?

Mac: So Easy a Strawman Could Do It

Oh, man. I've been Mr Mac Advocate Bore Twat since 1993, but really: every single one of these ads makes me want to go and live in a cave with a TRS-80.

The UK version with Mitchell and Webb was one of the most epic fails ever. Taking an already dire idea and making it so bad it's unwatchable takes a special kind of marketing fuckwittery. The only thing worse are Microsoft's "I'm a PC!" ads, which make me want to live at the bottom of a swamp with an abacus.

i lol at these ads, john hodgman is pretty funny

i was just thinking last week that it sux that there isn't an ILE thread called JOHN HODGMAN OWNS because he rules imo

I sell fish

Thing about these ads, especially the X-mas one, is that I like the PC guy waaay more than the Mac twerp. PC guy is funny, loathesome, distinctive, and thus perversely appealing. He's a good bad guy, like Burgermeister Meisterburger. Mac twerp, on the other hand, has no discernable personality or character. He's just some smug, generic indie turdball. Bleck.

Mac twerp, on the other hand, has no discernable personality or character. He's just some smug, generic indie turdball.

But he'll tell you how utterly great and superior to the rest of the human race beyond any form of reasoned argument until he's blue in the face?

Jon Stewart to thread.

anyway, Macs don't entirely suck but I do require in a computer that it has a working file browser front and centre unfortunately.

whatever the Finder is supposed to be it sure as hell isn't that.

I can only liken to experience to getting a new shiny bike that steers where you put it 90% of the time....

god knows why their attitude seems to be "don't fix it if not very many people find it broken" but my moneys elsewhere now.

and yeah, I love my iPod (except for the relatively rare choking on VBR encoded files.. it's an MP3 player that can't play all MP3's??) but I will be the last person on earth to buy an iPhone still from the impression I was left with of this company.

*deep breath... letting go*

Mac is sposed to make you less anal retentive dude.

fandango, I'm choking on your superfluous apostrophe.

Mac guy is basically Zach Braff. I hate him.

that was the idea :(

it had the opposite effect, in that I ended up having to think about EXACTLY what I was doing ALL of the time, never knowing quite what folder layout I was going to get, cut & paste being interesting, icons all over the shop, sometimes way off screen without snap-to-grid, the same keyboard shortcuts behaving completely differently relative to the location of each folder or if it was an alias, dragging aliases sometimes making more aliases, sometimes moving entire folders without warning(!)

Sold it on at a loss after 6 months of hoping I'd "get used to it" and have never complained about Windows since.

the alternative shells were even worse fwiw... it's not like I gave up without a struggle. shame I got one of the last gen non-intel models really. no dual-booting xp for me :(

i have a very strong aversion to these commercials.

Macs seem very unintuitive to me - when I am not sure how to do something, I look for a way to do it involving WORDS, not MOVING PICTURES. But I can't complain too much, I've had my computer for two years, it's actually only hung probably twice ever, it's pretty tolerant of being dropped, and it generally works well.

The Mac vs. PC ads? Yeah. They're awful. I think they're actually kind of embarrassing to anyone who actually identifies with the Mac character.

i love macs but I agree that the finder has gotten worse with OSX; original classic finder was fine.

You can by and large revert to classic finder behavior by closing all but one Finder window then turning off the sidebar.

"I'm the substitute teacher that made you watch Rudy." "And I'm the substitute teacher that made you watch Le Ballon Rouge."

whatever the Finder is supposed to be it sure as hell isn't that.

Bahahaha this is kind of true.

i don't see what the problem is here. the "I'm a PC <insert indie dude>" ads are pretty embarrassing, tho.

"I'm the substitute teacher that made you watch Rudy." "And I'm the substitute teacher that made you watch Le Ballon Rouge."

Hawhaw!

I prefer Macs, but everyone is OTM about Hodgman being much more appealing than that Justin Long douche.

Aren't the British versions of the character even more over the top in there okay you are going to completely hate the Mac guy unnaturally?

PC guy isn't supposed to be unappealing, he's supposed to be charming (with its associations with slightness). Yes, you're supposed to view him through Mac guy's eyes (why Mac guy is fairly generic* ) as an also-ran, but that's not smug - Mac guy regards him charitably with a we're-all-in-this-together attitude, which is mildly funny meta given the Mac vs PC history. I mean, challops, but people seem to be missing the obvious here?

*and perhaps hitting too close to home? dude is not Zach Braff tho, afaic

i'm not sure i've liked all the commercials, but the ones on right now are fine imo

Back when these started, and they were still trying to be about the actual workings of the computers, I'd find myself imagining alternative versions about all the things I prefer with PCs.

It was nice to see Microsoft try to pick up on that whole Hodgman's-more-lovable aspect with their new campaign, but they didn't really try that hard, or manage it very well.

In other Mac-ad news, I was kinda amused to learn that the song from their iPhone commercials is called "You and Me and the Bourgeoisie." (Haha from an album named after the woman who plays the assistant on Foyle's War? Zowee.)

Honeysuckle Weeks! I love that name.

Yeah, I saw the title pop through the commercial and went "wait, where do I recognize that phrase from" -- took a second to remember watching Foyle's War on DVD and sitting there during every single opening going "HER NAME IS HONEYSUCKLE WEEKS CAN YOU BELIEVE THIS"

Seriously, though, if I were making iPhone ads I'd probably have tried to keep all references to being bourgeois away from them. Shows what I know.

if you like foyle's war, midsomer murders is gonna blow yr mind!

i liked the mac guy in live free or die hard, but pretty much everything in that movie was perfection

The MS "response" ad(s) are about 100000 times worse than the originals. Not memorable or amusing in the slightest and might as well have a huge banner running across the top, NO WE DIDN'T ACTUALLY "GET" THE MAC VS. PC ADS BUT HERE'S A RESPONSE ANYWAYS.

Apple should make ads with Sinbad talking about how awesome macs are. Preferably while wearing one of those headphones-with-mic things.

bahaha libcrypt OTM.

Was Mac Guy the doctor in Idiocracy?

yes

"You talk like a fag, and your shit's all retarded."

would you guys say these ads, at least in the US, blatantly play to the whole culture war red vs blue thing?

maybe mac should go a few steps further and show overweight heartland swingers uploading pics to flickr

not at all? I don't think anybody would believe for a second that john hodgman is a plumber for jesus.

back in the 80s and 90s apple pretty clearly played on republican vs democrat stereotypes, but they were marketing to a generation that grew up with pretty rigid concepts of left vs right, plus IBM and Windows as brands were about as unhip as you could get

nowadays there's a trace of that but the real thrust is generational - and the cultural left/right that could be inferred is probably more due to the fact that young folks in the 2000s (ugh millenials) are more progressive than even their older siblings

I mean the real thing going on in these ads is that there is a dude who puts on uncomfortable clothes and wears spectacles every day next to a dude who just rocks some old jeans and a hoodie and the tagline for every ad could just as well be "work smarter not harder," which is a fairly powerful brand message except Apple avoids the word "work" like the plague.

I do feel like these ads would be more annoying if absolutely everything they said or implied about Vista and the marketing thereof wasn't true.

i agree with you. the way i worded my post was kind of dumb, too. i guess it's maybe more of an implication of old and old-fashioned vs. young and 'cutting edge' or whatever. though they definitely aren't at all worried about alienating any <male name> the <blue-collared profession> types with these ads, either.

http://www.funnycommercialsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/windows-7-simplify-my-pc.jpg

fucking commercials drive me crazy

who is "me" in this ad?