Re: <nettime> 'Going Negative' Is the Way to Go

[Are Flagan <areflagan@mac.com>]

> 
> http://www.clickz.com/design/creat_mess/article.php/1382411
> 
> 'Going Negative' is the Way to Go
> By Tig Tillinghast
> 

I'm sorry, but the good/bad binary resolved through freedom of choice (as in
survival of the fittest derived from self-regulating markets) is such an
oxymoron when it comes to computing platforms and supporters, advertisers
and audiences, not to mention corporations and consumers. Apple isn't a
radical reincarnation of Consumer Report.

Am I the only one who has had a problem with every Mac I have bought (the
last one lasting two days before the power supply blew, followed by a month
of waiting for a missing spare part no doubt fed into every computer sold
and shipped in the interim)?

> It's negative advertising -- and it looks great.

More of the deep Apple philosophy that gave us flower power in a plastic
casing. A dead Mac or PC is the ugliest and most dysfunctional piece of
furniture you will ever own -- it does not look so good when it does not
work so great. Only when the computer companies, PC or Mac, realize that you
invest (your consumption) in your own productivity, your enhanced ability to
produce and network as part of a larger culture, and offer a negative ad,
backed up by product and service, chastising its counterpart for not doing
the same are the rules of this particular game just slightly altered.
Despite the flirtation with computation offered through the UNIX core of OS
X, Apple seeks and breeds end-users that really believe the _i_ prefix of
all the proprietary freebies to be a nice synonym for _self_.

I agree, though, Apple is going negative, but the pluses and minuses
assigned in this marketplace are very easily reversible. Putting helpless
confessions on TV that are absolved by the company against another evil does
of course echo the other broadcasts coming out of America these days. Sign
of the times etc....

-af  

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