8 ms·
I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet someh
by jwwest 15y ago
I've never understood the enormous popularity of M.G. Siegler. His articles are often published without any attributions or even basic spell checking. Yet somehow he's ridden on the coattails of Apple's ascent by positioning himself among the fandom as a "champion of good taste". In interviews he doesn't even come off as particularly pleasant.
- reuser 15y agoPleasantries aren't part of this kind of "good taste".
- bluekeybox 15y agoExactly. Whoever said that good taste has anything to do with appearing pleasant?
- jwwest 15y agoIt's hard to imagine someone enjoying his level of celebrity without even trying to appear pleasant. Even Steve Jobs reserved the bulk of his ire for those that worked for him, and appeared caring to his audience (customers), even "patronly".
- oldstrangers 15y agoFanboys on either side of the aisle love to pat themselves on the back and reaffirm--almost daily--that yes, they did buy the best product imaginable. It's the same reason Gruber makes half a million a year writing snarky one liners. Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing.
- amartya916 15y agoWhile there is some truth to what you said, I don't think dragging John Gruber is appropriate. One can at least see that a post is well written (I actually think that in terms of plain English, Gruber does the best job within the tech. blogosphere) and that some care and thought has been put into framing a cogent argument. From there, it's up to you to agree or disagree. I am not referring to the links he posts, but the actual writing that he does. MG Siegler on the other hand has been perfectly described by Lyons. All he does is generate venom, and copious amounts of it, followed by a couple of "Fuck You's"" and so-on. I think he's the National Enquirer of tech. reporting. And hence, ankle biting Chihuahua is more than correct. If Dan's reading this, good-luck mate. I am glad you called out Siegler's bluff. What he was trying to do with the Path issue was simply 'diversion'. Rake up an issue that can get people talking - loud enough - that it drowns out the issue at hand (callous and selfish handling of privacy in the Silicon Valley).
- chalst 15y agoGruber wonders "Lyons has always been an ass, but when did he get so bitter? " and says "Siegler is one of the top writers on the Apple beat, period. Good sources, smart analysis, and he’s been right way way way more often than he’s been wrong." http://daringfireball.net/2011/08/balls http://daringfireball.net/2011/08/balls Gruber and Siegler are symbiotes and it is entirely appropriate to drag Siegler in.
- amartya916 15y agoYou are right, and Gruber is wrong... in this case. Gruber usually does a good job of citing sources and for the rest of the article he makes some good points. Like I said before, one can agree or disagree. To reiterate though, his rushing to Siegler's defence is just silly. Gruber does himself and his readers a disservice by linking to Siegler's blog. Siegler sensationalizes the smallest of things -something Lyons brings up eloquently- and then is hypocritical enough to try and portray that he actually abhors the practice! The main reason I wanted to not drag Gruber into the discussion was: a. Lyons' article makes no mention of him. b. Gruber and Siegler might write about Apple, but Gruber can actually write, and Siegler can't. Ankle biting chihuahua is just right. Anyway, you make a good point, and I hope I clarified why I thought Gruber shouldn't be in this list.
- throwaway64 15y agoPeople fiercely defend their choice to spend a chunk of money on something, otherwise they wasted their money and look foolish, clearly (to themselves) they are not foolish, so they must have spent the money for the right reasons. The more this perception is challenged, the more fiercely it gets defended. An attack on $BRAND_OF_CHOICE is viewed as an attack on their choice to invest in it, and thus an personal attack on themselves. So they seek to reaffirm their choices via whatever and whoever will say what they want to hear. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognative_dissonance http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cognative_dissonance
- bishnu 15y agoAny source for that figure about Gruber's income? I find it hard to believe.
- oldstrangers 15y agoJust a rough estimation based off this: http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ http://daringfireball.net/feeds/sponsors/ + Amazon affiliate sales.
- rkalla 15y agoUnfortunately I think it is worse than just justifying your purchase; for a lot of people it is defining their identity. You say "iPhone's are stupid!" and all they hear is "I think YOU are stupid!". A lot of people define themselves by distilling the version of themselves they want to portray to the world as a collective of company logos and brands. I don't think it is healthy, but it sure makes sense why people do it.
- jwwest 15y agoThis is exactly what Apple set out to do, equate the brand with the self - much like fashion. Harley Davidson is another example where this occurs.
- danssig 15y agoCome on, you think Google doesn't do this? If anything anywhere on the net is critical of something Google does there will an army of fanboys there within seconds in Google's defense.
- roc 15y agoEven before Apple consciously set out to harness this, people were self-identifying as Unix people, Microsoft people and even CP/M people. So, yes, Apple consciously leverages this. But, no, the behavior is not solely a result of their effort. Consider all the tribes that don't even have a coherent "brand" behind them: C people and Ruby people; truck people and sports car people; dog people and cat people; PC gamers and console gamers; new york- and chicago-style pizza people; goths and hipsters and rockabillies; nerds and jocks; white-collar and blue-collar people; etc.
- tvon 15y agoIf you say "Linux is stupid" or "Ubuntu is stupid" or "FOSS is stupid", you'll get the same response.
- rkalla 15y agoOh, I don't think it matters. It just depends on the social circles you run as to what the noun in that sentence is. You a farmer in Illinois? Then the noun could be "John Deer" or "Monsanto" and you'll get appropriate responses. If you are a chef in New York you could say "Dilantium Knives" are/aren't stupid and get an appropriate response and so on. We are a lot like race car drivers anymore; draping the brands of the companies we are proud to identify ourselves by.
- samstave 15y agoIf you haven't already - watch the documentaries "Century of the self" and "Human Resources" for more disturbing information on how this came to be.
- dpitkin 15y agoFor a lighter and modern take, the recent BBC show Secrets of the Superbrands does a good job showing why we like what we like. I can also second taking some time to watch "The Century of the Self" but its a bit darker.
- Steko 15y agoThe "fanboy dismissal" is here, as usal, a cop out. It's the same copout that 2/3 of the commentariat falls back on whenever the subject comes up of why Apple is so successful. Must be those fanboys, that pixie dust, that RDF... "Some sort of subconscious need to find superiority in consumer purchases and brand loyalty. It's kind of disturbing." Or maybe it's just a good blog? Despite happily not owning a Mac for almost a decade I've continued to read Gruber all this time because his signal to noise ratio is off the charts compared to any other tech blogger. His voice is unique and entertaining. The entire layout is clean and sparse. It's one of the few tech RSS feeds you know isn't going to be knee deep in repackaged press releases and bullshit false equivalence analysis. If all you had to do to make a half million dollars a year was turn out snarky one liners there'd be a lot more millionaires in the world.
- nowarninglabel 15y agoEh, I'll be the counter-point here in that I do own a Mac, love it for the hardware which is amazing, but can't stand Gruber or his ilk. I'm not really sure what draws you to him, but I can tell you just cause I like Mac doesn't mean I want to go find superiority in it or read Gruber's nonsense.
- asg 15y agoI don't think this can be construed as 'fanboy dismissal', though the term 'fanboy' itself is controversial. Post purchase dissonance reduction is a well known cognitive bias[1]. And what can be better for dissonance reduction than someone telling you that you have good taste, and anyone who buys the competition is a philistine? I should point out that this does not impute anything to the quality of the products themselves. I just posit that blogs such as Gruber's play a active part in the ecosystem due to our cognitive biases. They are not merely a passive observer. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Post-purchase_rationalization
- padobson 15y agoThis might be one of the best comments I've ever read on the web. These gadgets are EXPENSIVE. If you're clearing $15.00 an hour and you buy a smartphone, that's 15-40 hours of your life that you've dedicated to that little machine. You can see why there would be fervor over those devices, especially for those enthusiasts that have to work so hard to afford them in the first place.
- funkah 15y agoSame old stuff people always say. Gruber, fanboys, yadda yadda, wakka wakka.
- doktrin 15y agoSiegler is a shameless bottom feeder. He and his ilk are an embarrassment to the tech community, who have sadly gotten rich off the sweat of others.
- mcantelon 15y agoHe's a Gruber knockoff. Same religious devotion to Apple, same trollish linkbait.
- recoiledsnake 15y agoYou forgot the abject Google-hate.
- rjdagost 15y agoSiegler falls into the category of "irritainment", entertainment via irritation. He's the type of guy you love to hate and I believe a lot of his popularity stems from that. I can't stand the guy and I think he's completely full of shit. And yet I read almost all of his blog posts. The only other TechCrunch writer that I regularly read is Devin Coldewey and that's because he has interesting articles and actually seems knowledgeable about technology. In other words I have learned things from his blog posts.