5 ms·

It's really not normal to be "in love" with a corporation to begin with....

by mdoms 6y ago

chadcmulligan 6y ago
It's more a religion or cult according to neuroscience https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-apple-makes-your-brain-go-all-religious/ https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-apple-makes-your-brain-...
- lqet 6y ago
  > Religion is a touchy subject. Oddly enough, as I have come to discover in these pages, so is Apple. This has also been my experience. I know people with whom I just avoid talking about Apple. Personally I just accept that Apple is their religion (some of them have Apple bumper stickers) and that religion is something deeply personal.
  - Veen 6y ago
    There are people who develop a religious fervour for brands, but I too often see that used as an excuse to dismiss legitimate arguments and preferences. Some people seem to develop an almost religious antipathy to brands and their customers. If Apple fanatics think Jobs or Cook are Jesus-like, the detractors seem to cast them as one rung up from Lucifer. It's assumed that if you prefer Apple products, it must be because you're brainwashed or ignorant. The possibility that there are rational reasons for preferring Apple and its ecosystem is rejected with no consideration.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - MaxBarraclough 6y ago
    It's curious that Apple have been more successful in inspiring this kind of zealotry than have the FSF. The power of good marketing I suppose. As I indicated in my other comment in this thread, I think such 'corporate fanboyism' can be considered a kind of immaturity.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - ghaff 6y ago
      I would say the FSF certainly has. It's just a far smaller group. Probably smaller than the group that finds them rather off-putting. And, of course, far smaller still than the group that doesn't care if, in fact, they've heard of the organization at all.
laurent92 6y ago
I always find it funny when people describe the beliefs of middle-ages as bigoted, believing God more than Galileo (or so the legend says) when clearly today, some masses clearly believe in states being the originator of public good, and some corporations being worth worshipping. Civilizations have evolved, but humans still be humans ;)
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  I agree it's rather silly for an adult to have a strong emotional attachment to a corporation. I can understand a child feeling that way about the company behind their favourite products, but it seems unbecoming in adults. The best example might be Apple 'fanboys'. (I don't know of a gender-neutral term here. Fanboy implies an excess of appreciation, but fan means something weaker.) I don't see that it has much to do with religion though. It's only silly because of the specifics of what a corporation is - a somewhat amoral body of capital, very roughly speaking - but it's not always silly to be attached to an institution. There's nothing religious about supporting the Against Malaria Foundation, or the EFF, or (here in the UK) the National Health Service.
  - _qulr 6y ago
    > I don't know of a gender-neutral term here. Fanboy implies an excess of appreciation, but fan means something weaker. I would say "fanatic". Of course the word "fan" is derived from "fanatic", but perhaps the fact that "fan" is a shorter word implies less zeal than the longer word.
  - scns 6y ago
    Where does the word fan come from? My guess would be: fanatic.
    - ghaff 6y ago
      It does but, as used, it means something much milder. You can be a "fan" of a band, say, without following them around from city to city.
  - 6y ago
encom 6y ago
The whole cultue of Apple is so weird, and kind of appalling. Just the fact that their press conferences are broadcast, and they're held in front of an audience that applaud everything the presenter says, and laughs at his jokes. People "live blog" it, like some bizarre court stenographer. And 1.000 threads are posted on HN about Apple keybords having been made even worse. Again. It's not healthy.
- netsharc 6y ago
  I remember seeing a video of a Musk presentation. It was like that too, but Musk was so awkward and charmless, it was so cringe-enducing.
  - Dahoon 6y ago
    So is Cook and so was Jobs. It's extremely cringe-enducing for someone not part of the cult.
  - AlchemistCamp 6y ago
    Steve Balmer wins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY&t=10s If you can do a shuffling run, punctuated by awkward hops around a stage while screaming, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!" to applause from a huge crowd at a corporate event, then you've got some devoted fanatics.
- deergomoo 6y ago
  That’s some selective consideration right there. Every large consumer tech company broadcasts their press conferences, because it’s of interest both to fans of the products and industry pundits. Samsung broadcast their phone events every year. As do Google. Microsoft and Sony are very happy to get on stage to tell you about their new consoles. Tesla have got a new car to tell you about too. Surely you can see why some people might be interested?
- enqk 6y ago
  I call them mass, because that’s what they are. I watch even them intentionally because the comical onslaught of positive words and colors does have a mood enhancing effect
tshaddox 6y ago
Aren’t you just equivocating on the phrase “in love” though? In this context it just means a strong preference for products manufactured by a certain firm in a certain industry, which isn’t particularly abnormal.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- dxdm 6y ago
  "Falling out of love" still implies the kind of love you also fall into, I think. "Falling in love" has not yet been banalized to some mean some generic positive emotion like the word live itself unfortunately has. I'm sad about the latter because we apparently lost the word to simply express this profound emotion without context.
skc 6y ago
I think most corporates would kill to garner the sort of emotional attachment Apple creates with it's customers.
matwood 6y ago
I have used Apple products for years and like them. I've tried competing products and they never worked as well as a complete package. Sure, they might have had a feature or two that was better by some metric, but overall Apple stuff works well for my use case. Does this mean I'm in love with Apple? I don't think so, but for now they work. Love and hate are also pretty similar emotions. I find both the people who love Apple and hate Apple to be...odd. I really don't understand either. It's a company, either use their products or don't.
- harry8 6y ago
  > ...either use their products or don't. This is where the hate comes from: It is frequently not a choice that one is able make, to not use their products. "You're at work, you must use $this." Is one of thousands of examples where your preference is made utterly irrelevant. Also this is where the love comes from. When forced to use something else and you hate it because your dislike of it is supercharged by that coercion, and you would much prefer to use this other product you might decide you love this other product and even evangelise it to increase your chance of being able to exercise your preference. The idea that we use choose our use of, and knowledge of, operating systems by our own free will is a little fanciful. X billion smart phone users and 99+% of them freely choose 1 of 2. "It's your choice" doesn't make sense as soon as you look at it from that perspective. At best, exercising your preference comes with a non-trivial cost. At worst, you have no choice. If it were easy to decide to use something else, something different whenever you felt like it the evangilism and ire would be more like it is for fast-food chains or clothing manufacturers. ie A little more fringe than we're seeing in computing.
tannhaeuser 6y ago
Yet the term "love" is used three times on the HN home page as I write this.

It's really not normal to be "in love" with a corporation to begin with....

by mdoms 6y ago

It's really not normal to be "in love" with a corporation to begin with....

It's more a religion or cult according to neuroscience https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-apple-makes-your-brain-go-all-religious/ https://www.cnet.com/news/scientists-apple-makes-your-brain-...

lqet 6y ago
> Religion is a touchy subject. Oddly enough, as I have come to discover in these pages, so is Apple. This has also been my experience. I know people with whom I just avoid talking about Apple. Personally I just accept that Apple is their religion (some of them have Apple bumper stickers) and that religion is something deeply personal.
- Veen 6y ago
  There are people who develop a religious fervour for brands, but I too often see that used as an excuse to dismiss legitimate arguments and preferences. Some people seem to develop an almost religious antipathy to brands and their customers. If Apple fanatics think Jobs or Cook are Jesus-like, the detractors seem to cast them as one rung up from Lucifer. It's assumed that if you prefer Apple products, it must be because you're brainwashed or ignorant. The possibility that there are rational reasons for preferring Apple and its ecosystem is rejected with no consideration.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- MaxBarraclough 6y ago
  It's curious that Apple have been more successful in inspiring this kind of zealotry than have the FSF. The power of good marketing I suppose. As I indicated in my other comment in this thread, I think such 'corporate fanboyism' can be considered a kind of immaturity.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - ghaff 6y ago
    I would say the FSF certainly has. It's just a far smaller group. Probably smaller than the group that finds them rather off-putting. And, of course, far smaller still than the group that doesn't care if, in fact, they've heard of the organization at all.

laurent92 6y ago

I always find it funny when people describe the beliefs of middle-ages as bigoted, believing God more than Galileo (or so the legend says) when clearly today, some masses clearly believe in states being the originator of public good, and some corporations being worth worshipping. Civilizations have evolved, but humans still be humans ;)

MaxBarraclough 6y ago
I agree it's rather silly for an adult to have a strong emotional attachment to a corporation. I can understand a child feeling that way about the company behind their favourite products, but it seems unbecoming in adults. The best example might be Apple 'fanboys'. (I don't know of a gender-neutral term here. Fanboy implies an excess of appreciation, but fan means something weaker.) I don't see that it has much to do with religion though. It's only silly because of the specifics of what a corporation is - a somewhat amoral body of capital, very roughly speaking - but it's not always silly to be attached to an institution. There's nothing religious about supporting the Against Malaria Foundation, or the EFF, or (here in the UK) the National Health Service.
- _qulr 6y ago
  > I don't know of a gender-neutral term here. Fanboy implies an excess of appreciation, but fan means something weaker. I would say "fanatic". Of course the word "fan" is derived from "fanatic", but perhaps the fact that "fan" is a shorter word implies less zeal than the longer word.
- scns 6y ago
  Where does the word fan come from? My guess would be: fanatic.
  - ghaff 6y ago
    It does but, as used, it means something much milder. You can be a "fan" of a band, say, without following them around from city to city.
- 6y ago

encom 6y ago

The whole cultue of Apple is so weird, and kind of appalling. Just the fact that their press conferences are broadcast, and they're held in front of an audience that applaud everything the presenter says, and laughs at his jokes. People "live blog" it, like some bizarre court stenographer. And 1.000 threads are posted on HN about Apple keybords having been made even worse. Again. It's not healthy.

netsharc 6y ago
I remember seeing a video of a Musk presentation. It was like that too, but Musk was so awkward and charmless, it was so cringe-enducing.
- Dahoon 6y ago
  So is Cook and so was Jobs. It's extremely cringe-enducing for someone not part of the cult.
- AlchemistCamp 6y ago
  Steve Balmer wins: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY&t=10s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I14b-C67EXY&t=10s If you can do a shuffling run, punctuated by awkward hops around a stage while screaming, "Eeeeeeeeeeeeee!" to applause from a huge crowd at a corporate event, then you've got some devoted fanatics.
deergomoo 6y ago
That’s some selective consideration right there. Every large consumer tech company broadcasts their press conferences, because it’s of interest both to fans of the products and industry pundits. Samsung broadcast their phone events every year. As do Google. Microsoft and Sony are very happy to get on stage to tell you about their new consoles. Tesla have got a new car to tell you about too. Surely you can see why some people might be interested?
enqk 6y ago
I call them mass, because that’s what they are. I watch even them intentionally because the comical onslaught of positive words and colors does have a mood enhancing effect

tshaddox 6y ago

Aren’t you just equivocating on the phrase “in love” though? In this context it just means a strong preference for products manufactured by a certain firm in a certain industry, which isn’t particularly abnormal.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
dxdm 6y ago
"Falling out of love" still implies the kind of love you also fall into, I think. "Falling in love" has not yet been banalized to some mean some generic positive emotion like the word live itself unfortunately has. I'm sad about the latter because we apparently lost the word to simply express this profound emotion without context.

skc 6y ago

I think most corporates would kill to garner the sort of emotional attachment Apple creates with it's customers.

matwood 6y ago

I have used Apple products for years and like them. I've tried competing products and they never worked as well as a complete package. Sure, they might have had a feature or two that was better by some metric, but overall Apple stuff works well for my use case. Does this mean I'm in love with Apple? I don't think so, but for now they work. Love and hate are also pretty similar emotions. I find both the people who love Apple and hate Apple to be...odd. I really don't understand either. It's a company, either use their products or don't.

harry8 6y ago
> ...either use their products or don't. This is where the hate comes from: It is frequently not a choice that one is able make, to not use their products. "You're at work, you must use $this." Is one of thousands of examples where your preference is made utterly irrelevant. Also this is where the love comes from. When forced to use something else and you hate it because your dislike of it is supercharged by that coercion, and you would much prefer to use this other product you might decide you love this other product and even evangelise it to increase your chance of being able to exercise your preference. The idea that we use choose our use of, and knowledge of, operating systems by our own free will is a little fanciful. X billion smart phone users and 99+% of them freely choose 1 of 2. "It's your choice" doesn't make sense as soon as you look at it from that perspective. At best, exercising your preference comes with a non-trivial cost. At worst, you have no choice. If it were easy to decide to use something else, something different whenever you felt like it the evangilism and ire would be more like it is for fast-food chains or clothing manufacturers. ie A little more fringe than we're seeing in computing.

tannhaeuser 6y ago

Yet the term "love" is used three times on the HN home page as I write this.