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Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect, tonally the ad was also overly edgy, which is off-brand for Apple. As n

Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect, tonally the ad was also overly edgy, which is off-brand for Apple. As noted elsewhere, it felt like a video game commercial from the '90s: gratuitous in its attention-seeking. https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171 https://twitter.com/cuniiform/status/1788013085392859171 And it's actually already been done before, by Nintendo: https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321 https://twitter.com/rsnous/status/1788047377556791321 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzAo9HzOgtQ

madrox 2y ago
1984 was edgy for its time. I think the difficulty is that the iPad is no longer an edgy product. The least edgy thing you could be these days is an iPad owner, and this ad wasn't the one to change that.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  "1984" was edgy in a cool way, but that's not the type of edginess I'm evoking. Most '90s video game commercials that were edgy did so in a puerile, juvenile way as befitting the target audience. And not just video game ads, there was definitely a big "xtreme" trend as well. The Apple ad taps into that xtreme vibe by embracing destructive energy to depict a physical contrast. Which is visually attention-grabbing, but it puts the focus on the act of destruction, and reduction, and people who like the destroyed objects feel miffed. "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell."
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    > "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell." Well, it just wasn't focusing on empty slowmo destruction of a big screen. It had an emotional message behind it. A bit like original Star Wars vs Rebel Moon.
- somenameforme 2y ago
  1984 [1] was edgy precisely because it worked as a criticism of society and culture, and then showed a way to 'break free' of mindless dystopia. This [2] ad is pretty much the exact and literal opposite. It essentially takes a sampling of the great things that culture and society has produced, destroys them, and then shows the Product, while literally singing "All I Ever Need Is You." Here [3] a guy basically reversed the ad, with the iPad being crushed, and then slowly lifting it up to have all the great stuff in society come out of it. And suddenly it's actually quite uplifting and positive! [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc [3] - https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950 https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950
  - amatecha 2y ago
    Today's "1984" ad would have to include someone throwing a sledgehammer through an iMac, and similarly destroying an iPhone. It wouldn't be an advertisement for any corporation though, because a truly game-changing act today would be to opt out of the extractive and coercive cycle of modern proprietary technology.
    - robertlagrant 2y ago
      It was totally incongruous when it was made as well. Buying a computer from a company was never an act of rebellion.
      - rvense 2y ago
        Rebellion can't be bought, but in the 1980's I think it was still an open question whether computers would ever be something that non-nerds wanted. In hindsight, it seems inevitable that general purpose, user friendly computers would crush everything, but was that really a given? Isn't there a possible world where IBM and/or Xerox do own everything and never make it past huge, expensive systems that were only made for specialists? For everyone here that loved our C64 or DOS PC, how many of our peers actively rejected early computers because they weren't fun to use?
- rchaud 2y ago
  It was also edgy because the company CEO was a barefoot hippie who got fired from stodgy HP for, among other things, poor hygiene. Apple today is the one size fits all megacorp the 1984 ad railed against.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
aprilnya 2y ago
Re: the Pokémon commercial, I feel like the Apple commercial put way more focus into the actual destruction of the instruments… Like, a lot of its runtime was spent on actually showing each thing getting destroyed individually, so it has a completely different energy compared to the silly Pokémon one It’s like if the Pokémon one showed each Pokémon getting crushed with splattering and gore…
- whywhywhywhy 2y ago
  Yeah there was revelling in the visual and nuance of their destruction. Could have done the whole thing CG where the objects squished together satisfyingly like they were made of clay rather than cracking and shattering. Honestly was easier/cheaper to do also.
  - aprilnya 2y ago
    Yeah, I think if they did than then it would have actually been a good ad. But focusing on the destruction/actually having destruction at all took away from the point that "it's compressing all these things into one" and made it interpretable as "we're destroying all these things, cause iPad can do it all"
mrzool 2y ago
> destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people This was really poorly worded and sounded very elitist and dismissive, I trust this was not the intention.
- jbm 2y ago
  On the contrary, I wish this was dismissive. It's about time that the Overton window gets shifted about the overly nostalgic articles that get praised by "the right people", which means we need to "read the room" and share the same opinions. It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device is replacing an expensive one, and that impoverished children will be able to create music with an inexpensive iPad and will not be forced to learn obsolete methods to "finger" an instrument.
  - makeitdouble 2y ago
    Aside from whether the iPad is inexpensive or not, it just doesn't replace an actual piano or trumpet. If your use case is really covered by the iPad, you could also make do with a refurbished corporate DELL costing half the price or 3 years ago's Surface Pro, same way the track makers were doing 2 decades ago. So no, Apple's marketing would sure want us to think so, but impoverished children are probably not saved by 2024's thinner iPad in any significant way.
    - mwigdahl 2y ago
      I can just visualize the post iPad high school jazz band -- twenty kids sitting in chairs with their tablets, rhythmically tapping virtual buttons on their touchscreen. One stands for her solo, tapping her screen at a different cadence. Oh, she's playing trumpet? I thought she was a saxophonist! What artistry! What musicianship! Thank God for Apple and the new iPad!
      - least 2y ago
        I know this was written in jest, but I don't really see anything wrong with this sort of thing happening. I don't foresee it being the norm any time soon (if ever) but as a novelty it'd be fun to see.
yareal 2y ago
I'm a tech person, and I found the destruction of beautiful things quite distasteful. I don't think it was only non tech people who disliked it.
bitwize 2y ago
Yikes, that was really offbrand for Nintendo also, but it fits within their 90s "Play It Loud" marketing strategy wherein they tried to compete with ow-the-edge Sega and later Sony.
franciscop 2y ago
Tonally isn't it kind of like the 1984 Apple commercial?
- willis936 2y ago
  1984 was about breaking free from the bondage of an Orwellian society. Crush is a celebration of creating that bondage.
- rchaud 2y ago
  Yeah if the ad was for IBM.
steve1977 2y ago
I challenge you to manufacture a well-sounding and nicely tuned piano and then reconsider the term "low tech"
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  I meant digital vs. analog, nothing pejorative
jjulius 2y ago
> Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect... 604 comments on this HN post (at the time of writing this), the bulk of which appear to be opposed to this video, and you're trying to tell me that tech folk aren't, to use your word, "triggered"? C'mon now.
- Apocryphon 2y ago
  Of course people are, that’s the main source of the controversy. I’m just exploring a side aspect about why this ad doesn’t work.

madrox 2y ago

1984 was edgy for its time. I think the difficulty is that the iPad is no longer an edgy product. The least edgy thing you could be these days is an iPad owner, and this ad wasn't the one to change that.

Apocryphon 2y ago
"1984" was edgy in a cool way, but that's not the type of edginess I'm evoking. Most '90s video game commercials that were edgy did so in a puerile, juvenile way as befitting the target audience. And not just video game ads, there was definitely a big "xtreme" trend as well. The Apple ad taps into that xtreme vibe by embracing destructive energy to depict a physical contrast. Which is visually attention-grabbing, but it puts the focus on the act of destruction, and reduction, and people who like the destroyed objects feel miffed. "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell."
- robertlagrant 2y ago
  > "1984" I'd say was edgy in a rebellious way as you point out, which I'd argue gives it more substance. The sledgehammer hitting the screen isn't even the focus, it's the climax to a sequence that carries more of a meaningful message than "wow look how much functionality we fit into this thin shell." Well, it just wasn't focusing on empty slowmo destruction of a big screen. It had an emotional message behind it. A bit like original Star Wars vs Rebel Moon.
somenameforme 2y ago
1984 [1] was edgy precisely because it worked as a criticism of society and culture, and then showed a way to 'break free' of mindless dystopia. This [2] ad is pretty much the exact and literal opposite. It essentially takes a sampling of the great things that culture and society has produced, destroys them, and then shows the Product, while literally singing "All I Ever Need Is You." Here [3] a guy basically reversed the ad, with the iPad being crushed, and then slowly lifting it up to have all the great stuff in society come out of it. And suddenly it's actually quite uplifting and positive! [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtvjbmoDx-I [2] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ntjkwIXWtrc [3] - https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950 https://twitter.com/rezawrecktion/status/1788211832936861950
- amatecha 2y ago
  Today's "1984" ad would have to include someone throwing a sledgehammer through an iMac, and similarly destroying an iPhone. It wouldn't be an advertisement for any corporation though, because a truly game-changing act today would be to opt out of the extractive and coercive cycle of modern proprietary technology.
  - robertlagrant 2y ago
    It was totally incongruous when it was made as well. Buying a computer from a company was never an act of rebellion.
    - rvense 2y ago
      Rebellion can't be bought, but in the 1980's I think it was still an open question whether computers would ever be something that non-nerds wanted. In hindsight, it seems inevitable that general purpose, user friendly computers would crush everything, but was that really a given? Isn't there a possible world where IBM and/or Xerox do own everything and never make it past huge, expensive systems that were only made for specialists? For everyone here that loved our C64 or DOS PC, how many of our peers actively rejected early computers because they weren't fun to use?
rchaud 2y ago
It was also edgy because the company CEO was a barefoot hippie who got fired from stodgy HP for, among other things, poor hygiene. Apple today is the one size fits all megacorp the 1984 ad railed against.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

aprilnya 2y ago

Re: the Pokémon commercial, I feel like the Apple commercial put way more focus into the actual destruction of the instruments… Like, a lot of its runtime was spent on actually showing each thing getting destroyed individually, so it has a completely different energy compared to the silly Pokémon one It’s like if the Pokémon one showed each Pokémon getting crushed with splattering and gore…

whywhywhywhy 2y ago
Yeah there was revelling in the visual and nuance of their destruction. Could have done the whole thing CG where the objects squished together satisfyingly like they were made of clay rather than cracking and shattering. Honestly was easier/cheaper to do also.
- aprilnya 2y ago
  Yeah, I think if they did than then it would have actually been a good ad. But focusing on the destruction/actually having destruction at all took away from the point that "it's compressing all these things into one" and made it interpretable as "we're destroying all these things, cause iPad can do it all"

mrzool 2y ago

> destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people This was really poorly worded and sounded very elitist and dismissive, I trust this was not the intention.

jbm 2y ago
On the contrary, I wish this was dismissive. It's about time that the Overton window gets shifted about the overly nostalgic articles that get praised by "the right people", which means we need to "read the room" and share the same opinions. It is an absolutely good thing that an inexpensive device is replacing an expensive one, and that impoverished children will be able to create music with an inexpensive iPad and will not be forced to learn obsolete methods to "finger" an instrument.
- makeitdouble 2y ago
  Aside from whether the iPad is inexpensive or not, it just doesn't replace an actual piano or trumpet. If your use case is really covered by the iPad, you could also make do with a refurbished corporate DELL costing half the price or 3 years ago's Surface Pro, same way the track makers were doing 2 decades ago. So no, Apple's marketing would sure want us to think so, but impoverished children are probably not saved by 2024's thinner iPad in any significant way.
  - mwigdahl 2y ago
    I can just visualize the post iPad high school jazz band -- twenty kids sitting in chairs with their tablets, rhythmically tapping virtual buttons on their touchscreen. One stands for her solo, tapping her screen at a different cadence. Oh, she's playing trumpet? I thought she was a saxophonist! What artistry! What musicianship! Thank God for Apple and the new iPad!
    - least 2y ago
      I know this was written in jest, but I don't really see anything wrong with this sort of thing happening. I don't foresee it being the norm any time soon (if ever) but as a novelty it'd be fun to see.

yareal 2y ago

I'm a tech person, and I found the destruction of beautiful things quite distasteful. I don't think it was only non tech people who disliked it.

bitwize 2y ago

Yikes, that was really offbrand for Nintendo also, but it fits within their 90s "Play It Loud" marketing strategy wherein they tried to compete with ow-the-edge Sega and later Sony.

franciscop 2y ago

Tonally isn't it kind of like the 1984 Apple commercial?

willis936 2y ago
1984 was about breaking free from the bondage of an Orwellian society. Crush is a celebration of creating that bondage.
rchaud 2y ago
Yeah if the ad was for IBM.

steve1977 2y ago

I challenge you to manufacture a well-sounding and nicely tuned piano and then reconsider the term "low tech"

Apocryphon 2y ago
I meant digital vs. analog, nothing pejorative

jjulius 2y ago

> Aside from the destruction of low-tech artistic tools triggering non-tech people aspect... 604 comments on this HN post (at the time of writing this), the bulk of which appear to be opposed to this video, and you're trying to tell me that tech folk aren't, to use your word, "triggered"? C'mon now.

Apocryphon 2y ago
Of course people are, that’s the main source of the controversy. I’m just exploring a side aspect about why this ad doesn’t work.