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It’s not my place to tell anyone how they should feel about anything, but the number of comments here suggesting people had a strong emotional reaction to this

It’s not my place to tell anyone how they should feel about anything, but the number of comments here suggesting people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me. How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily life? If I was feeling so upset about something like this, life would be pretty bad. Genuine question. EDIT: I appreciate the amount of good-faith discussion on this comment. To be clear, if your reaction to the ad was along the lines of ‘this is distasteful and I don’t like it’, I totally get that. I’m referring to some of the comments I saw that likened it to ‘stress inducing’ or ‘like watching someone’s arm get cut off’ which are much more emotive.

thinkingtoilet 2y ago
I agree. This a the quote from the article, someone called it the "destruction of human experience". We have to be a little bit tougher than this, right?
- red_trumpet 2y ago
  I agree that one can see the ad as depicting "destruction of human experience". This does not mean that my day is ruined after viewing the ad. Disliking the ad and calling it what it is does not mean one is not tough.
- waynesonfire 2y ago
  and i'm shocked that your response is to tell people to man up cry babies. maybe try reflecting why there was a reaction to the ad from a human experience perspective. there is a reason apple appologized instead of telling them to man up as you're suggesting.
  - camillomiller 2y ago
    The fact that you think it’s normal to use the word “shocked” to describe how you feel after reading an anonymous comment on an internet board about a tv ad ironically reinforces the entire point.
  - Satam 2y ago
    If they apologized it's because it's the best PR move. The execs definitely aren't sweating over "destruction of human experience".
    - bluefirebrand 2y ago
      If that's true, then it's probably because they've never had a human experience in their lives
  - frereubu 2y ago
    "We have to be a little bit tougher than this" is not the same as "Man up cry babies". That's a hyperbolic rephrasing which I think significantly misses the tone of the original.
  - ricardonunez 2y ago
    Apple did it because that’s the typical corporate response to a backlash, that said nobody should tell you to man up, you feel the way you feel and that’s it, just a reminder that it goes in both sides of the spectrum.
- financltravsty 2y ago
  I don't feel anything from the ad, but if you're numb to a pointed reminder of the towering tetragrammaton that ushered in perhaps the most anti-human technology we have seen (phones), then perhaps you need to be a little more open to experiencing the rawness of life. There's no strength in disassociating from the ills of the world. Useful in short bursts, but as a default state I would say is a problem. Now that doesn't mean the other side -- the histrionics -- are "right," but there is a balance to be found here.
- gregd 2y ago
  I don't think this is so much about this ONE ad but rather, it contributes to the overall feeling that real connections, like art, music, and architecture, are being lost daily. Music programs are constantly being cut. Architects can't find work. Woodworkers can't make a living making custom furniture. Sam Ash music stores are shuttering ALL their locations. Everything has been commodified. And Apple just piled on.
  - BEEdwards 2y ago
    >Everything has been commodified. welcome to capitalism...
- UncleMeat 2y ago
  If you dig through twitter, you can find somebody saying something dramatic about basically everything. It might be hyperbole to communicate a feeling. It might be somebody who is legitimately unwell and reacts unreasonably strongly to people. It might be somebody faking it. You can be almost certain that people using this language don't expect to be aggregated into news articles and then be used as evidence that the world is getting too soft.
- Bluestrike2 2y ago
  I can read "the destruction of human experience" two ways. One, it's a just a descriptive label of the symbolism the act of crushing creative instruments/tools/materials represents, even if that symbolism is clearly not something the creators ever intended. Two, is the more hyperbolic--or perhaps even hysteric--you're literally destroying the human experience and it's hurting me emotionally take. A lot of the commentary on social media is probably closer to the former, but it doesn't discount the latter. It's pretty obvious what marketing intended. You take a bunch of creative instruments/tools/materials, squish them inside the iPad, and you get to carry them with you with your iPad. Heck, I'm almost certain it's been done before as a cartoon gag: everything gets sucked into one super tool. There's probably an old Looney Tunes episode with something close enough--maybe stuffing books inside someone's head to teach them the material--to make my point. In any case, the metaphor's pretty clear; unfortunately, the Crush ad completely botches it. There's no mechanism by which the props 'enter' the iPad. Instead, you just see wanton destruction, the hydraulic press lifts up, and then there's an iPad sitting on a giant chunk of steel. Paint is dripping down the side, but the press itself is oddly sterile. The mess? The parts? The paint? All gone on the press except for what's left on the floor. And if it's smashed into itty bitty bits, even if it's now metaphorically "inside" the iPad, what's the point? Did the press somehow squeeze out some metaphysical meaning from the tools that got sucked into the iPad? Now throw in some of the angst about the possibility of generative AI replacing some creative jobs. If the idea is that an iPad will 'replace' those tools--or more likely, just let the user take them with you wherever they go--there's an implicit assumption that the user values those tools and would like them so close at hand. So literally destroying tools that, for many artists and creatives, are objects of affection closely tied to memories that are critical parts of their self-conception, is an absurd kind of symbolism that would have never made it off the drawing board under Jobs. People tend to respect their tools, and filming their meaningless destruction is going to rub people the wrong way even though it really has no actual impact. Especially with an ad that's simultaneously trying to get you to buy the product they were symbolically destroyed to revel. Will Crush turn many people off from buying a new iPad when they need one? Almost certainly not. But it does underscore that Apple's changed as as a company. Apple users--myself included--might still love the products they buy, but it doesn't seem like they're in love with them like it once seemed (for way too many of their users).
buro9 2y ago
> How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily life? Whilst I didn't feel a great deal watching the video, this statement is very presumptive. Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things? Should perhaps we, those who didn't feel a great deal here, not reflect on whether we might be feeling as much of life as we could, empathise more deeply, care about broader things, consider life as more than ration or reason? It didn't bother me one way or another, but I also didn't assume anything. I can imagine a life far more rich just by feeling more, seeing more colours in the same palette, tasting more when eating food, and feeling so much more when just experiencing life... perhaps for all the benefit of feeling more, there's just the sharper edge that sometimes you feel more about something like an Apple advert.
- llm_trw 2y ago
  >How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things? I feel strongly about important things, not all things.
  - haswell 2y ago
    Many people (and I’m one of those people) feel that the preservation of craftsmanship and human created art/music is extremely important to a healthy society.
    - llm_trw 2y ago
      Every object in that video was mass produced rubbish so craftsmanship survived unharmed.
      - haswell 2y ago
        Many musical instruments are still made by hand to this day. Many of the cameras still in active use were too. And even if you pick up a crappy starter guitar, learning it is a purely human endeavor, propagating the mastery that has been passed down through generations. And I have no idea how to reconcile “it’s all mass produced rubbish” with “craftsmanship survived unharmed”. These are in direct conflict.
bsaul 2y ago
Strong emotional reaction to anything is pretty much the norm nowadays. However, i feel like apple's ad made people visualize a true deep concern about the future of art (and humanity) with regards to the recent advancements of AI. The fact that the number 1 consumer hardware company in the world blatantly acknowledge the fact that computers are going to generate every piece of content automatically in the future is quite troubling. (of course, that's probably not exactly what they meant, as someone will have to push that "generate" button on the ipad, at some point).
- frereubu 2y ago
  I think this is it. Imagine if instead there was a "siphon" effect where the instruments get miniaturised / sucked into the iPad. I don't think anyone would have been upset by that. It's the crushing that's at issue, and it does touch on an anxiety around the digital experience crushing the life out of the more physical / personal engagement with music.
foobar_______ 2y ago
You help me feel sane. People, it is a commercial. Nothing more. Don't get your panties in a bundle. If you don't like it, change the channel, don't buy their product, go outside on a hike. The things people get upset about today is fascinating. GO OUTSIDE
- alt227 2y ago
  Sounds like you are getting your panties in a bundle about other people getting their panties in a bundle. Why do you care so much what other random people on the internet think? Maybe it is you who needs to go outside and stop reading these comments which make you feel 'insane'?
  - superidiot1932 2y ago
    And why do you care so much about what foobar thinks to the point of passively-aggressive asking him? "Why do you care about X" questions are inane.
    - alt227 2y ago
      ....and you have continued the pattern by joining in and asking me the question. Well done!
- dwallin 2y ago
  Why get so bothered by other people being upset? Apple is going to be fine, you don’t need to worry on their behalf. No need to get your undergarments of choice in a twist. Good opportunity to step outside and get some fresh air.
  - mindwok 2y ago
    It doesn’t really ‘bother’ me and I’m not worrying on their behalf. If you’re actually interested in why I’m worried, it makes me question whether there’s less emotional resilience in our society, and I value emotional resilience because I think we need it when life truly tests us.
deleted 2y ago
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faitswulff 2y ago
Even if you disagree, I would think that the volume or strength of the comments would teach you something about the situation. Instead, it’s the children who are wrong.
- mindwok 2y ago
  I explicitly said I’m not saying it’s wrong. Im asking if the emotional sensitivity to these things impacts them in daily life.
  - JoeAltmaier 2y ago
    In a sarcastic, dismissive way, that implied superiority. It was a pretty crass way to phrase the question. I learned far more from that than any answer.
cultofmetatron 2y ago
no kidding. there's a bunch of stuff going on in teh world (some of which risk getting me downvoted if I mention them) that are way more distressing. its not like they destroyed anything truly sacred or one of a kind.
PedroBatista 2y ago
We are in a age where most interactions are supercharged with melodramatic theatrics. Not to dunk too much on the artistic community, but when it comes to these 4 day dramas all the over the top adjectives are applied. Very eloquent but the feelings most of the time aren't even real. It's a performance.
- deaddodo 2y ago
  Not to mention, and this is something I have to explain to my European friends all the time when they get all of their information on the US from it's media, Americans speak in hyperbole all the time. It's how they talk to each other ("omg, you're my best friend", "I almost died", "That's the biggest tower I've ever seen", "People are literally dying on the streets due to private healthcare", etc), so if you read it without the context you would think this ad is the worst thing in the world.
  - ornornor 2y ago
    Side note: because literally has been so often used to mean figuratively, literally is now acceptable to mean figuratively. They even updated the definition in the dictionary: the word now means literally AND its opposite.
    - brabel 2y ago
      Yep, the dictionary's job is to tell you how people are using language, not to tell people how to use words :). And don't people love to make a mess with words' meanings?!
    - sapeint 2y ago
      Literally has been used in that way for literally hundreds of years. From Charles Dickens ("He had literally feasted his eyes on the culprit.") and Charlotte Bronte ("Literally I was the apple of his eye"), to Mark Twain (in Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (in The Great Gatsby) -- among others. This "Literally shouldn't be used figuratively" is a rather modern construct that was artificially created.
shakiXBT 2y ago
It seemed like a fun ad to me and that was it. People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies?
- waynesonfire 2y ago
  no, because the ad is very deliberate about what it's trying to represent. The intention is to suggest that physical tools that have been used for thousansd of years to create culture, art, and technonolgy and that themselves are art, are gabrage. the ad suggests an apple computer that is bound by limits of it's software and harware, that cannot be further refined, cannot be repaired, and severs the human senses from experiencing the tools it claims to deprecate, is superior. it's a bad message. they may as well have smashing the statue of david and shown that the mac's default background is a picture of it. and because someone has a negative reaction to an ad doesn't imply they got "angry" over it or need tougher skin or are somehome so sensitive they can't function in society. it's being able to reflect how something is making you feel. and it feels like a shitty ad on many levels.
  - kapp_in_life 2y ago
    To me it says "Look at all this stuff you can do with an ipad now, and in a thinner form factor. It used to take a room full of stuff to do this. Isn't that awesome?". You might not be angry but you're using pretty malicious language to assign intent to the ad that doesn't seem present to me.
- wiseowise 2y ago
  > People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies? Context matters. Here it looks like it's a zero-sum: iPad is crushing everything else.
cjk2 2y ago
I’m get the feeling some people are pretty bored and boring and collective outrage is an emotional release in some way.
gsich 2y ago
Staged outrage.
la_oveja 2y ago
i can dislike the ad or even find it repugnant, and the moment it ends still be on with my life. last time i checked having opinions on things was not frowned upon.
madeofpalk 2y ago
It's possible to have a negative reaction to something, but otherwise be fine. I don't think there's many people sobbing uncontrollably on the subway because they saw this ad. All sorts of media - whether movies or books or games or ads - are designed to make some kind of reaction in the audience. Dismissing "I don't like this" as a valid reaction is also dismissing "I like this", which seems silly.
- mindwok 2y ago
  I’m not dismissing it, I’m just curious about it. For me, if I was having strong negative reactions to things frequently it would impact my wellbeing. I wonder if thats not the case for these folks.
ornornor 2y ago
What bothers me the most is the casual destruction of perfectly functional, expensive (for some) items. It’s glorifying waste, and I’m sure there are individuals or families that would kill for the chance to get a piano, a trumpet, or the insanely overpriced Macs they can’t afford, while Apple is crushing them just to sell us more ewaste (seeing how apple in particular is at the forefront of anti repair)…
- Tarq0n 2y ago
  Now think of how much of these items the budget of any given commercial could pay for. Focusing on just the literal few in view in front of you is missing the forest for the trees.
  - ornornor 2y ago
    Not necessarily, it sells a message and an image on top of just wasting the large amount of money that any ad costs.
- uxp100 2y ago
  Nah, you basically can’t give pianos away.
  - dartos 2y ago
    I’d take a free piano. Those things are expensive
    - wilsonnb3 2y ago
      Open up your local Craigslist and you will probably find a bunch of them.
    - kzrdude 2y ago
      They are expensive to take too. (Need movers and piano tuner)
dwallin 2y ago
The WHOLE point of the ad in the first place was to make people feel strong positive emotions toward Apple products. It turns out they misjudged and for many people it didn’t evoke the type of emotions they thought it would. It’s not like people are up in arms about a spec sheet. I think you are being extremely irrational in expecting people to not feel passionately about random things. Companies spend insane amounts of money influencing consumer sentiment for good reasons.
__rito__ 2y ago
Nah, it's not exactly like that. I get through regular life okay, but this a $1T company with hundreds of billions in cash, profit driven, using child labor in China indirectly, and engaging in walled-garden policies makes it worse. They make all these gadgets that replaces incomes from many manufactures and puts it on a single hand. That's bad enough. Now, they destroy all these beautiful things- a piano, a guitar, a camera, and a lot of valuable things to make a point that this single silicon-made, soulless corporate company-produced, cheap exploited labor induced thing is going to replace them. Those things of aesthetics and soul are destroyed to give rise to this thing. That hits hard for me. Seriously. I thought that I was being a real snowflake when this ad made me uncomfortable, but was glad to see this backlash in large numbers. Maybe people still have souls. You can give a thousand lessons in "nature of real circumstances and geopolitics", and this ad with all its backstory will still be wrong to me.
- mindwok 2y ago
  Thanks, this for me is the best articulation for why someone might feel so strongly.
- macspoofing 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - itishappy 2y ago
    Really really. What makes that so hard to believe?
    - macspoofing 2y ago
      Because it's the most generic ad you can have. All it says is: "Look how many things iPad can help you do". This ad could have been made for any computing device released in the last 20 years (or more!). It's completely generic and corporate. This is a quintessential first-world freak-out - take something that is completely inconsequential and work yourself into a hysteria.
  - 2y ago
hydroreadsstuff 2y ago
I can tell you that I watched the recording, cringed for a few seconds and skipped it, and moved on with my life. After the outrage, revisiting my 3 seconds of feelings, I tend to agree that destroying nice things isn't a great thing to do in an ad.
haswell 2y ago
I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine. I don’t understand the insinuation that people who disliked it must be somehow unable to navigate daily life. Here’s why I disliked it: I’m one of those people who finds themselves concerned and sometimes sad at the erosion of the humanity in art. Social media and AI are changing the nature of artistic expression in a way that often feels destructive. I’ve started to intentionally unplug and use devices less in order to stay connected to what I see as the good stuff in life. To me, this ad is the culmination of what I dislike about tech. If they had played the ad in reverse, I think I’d have really liked it. iPad as a tool for expression. Instead, it’s presented as a tool that supersedes expression. I suspect Apple was trying to communicate the former. Edit to respond to the edit: highly sensitive people who have visceral reactions to stuff like this are canaries in the coal mine. We need them just as much as we need substantive discussion here. Some of the backlash also originated in Japan, where culturally this was quite offensive.
- tkgally 2y ago
  > I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine. Same here. And besides disliking the ad myself, I imagined that many other people would dislike it too. I also wondered how on earth it could have gotten the go sign within Apple. From the outside, at least, Apple looks like the epitome of a cautious, deliberate company. I would have thought there would have been plenty of stages in the approval process where it would have been shot down.
  - haswell 2y ago
    This is a good point. It does make me question what’s happening at Apple when something like this gets all the way through.
    - giobox 2y ago
      If you watch this ad back to back with the classic "1984" Mac ad, I found it hard not to feel that Apple has become the "Big Brother" it once despised.
  - 2y ago
conartist6 2y ago
I doubt you'd feel incensed unless you felt like you were also in the hydraulic press. Goodness, there's not any technology that would make artists as useless as their instruments and tools, is there? That would make this ad really relevant.
fhd2 2y ago
I don't care about Apple, so I don't care about the ad. It lowers my (already pretty low) opinion of them, but that's about it. If this kind of thing was done by a company I'm a huge supporter of, sunk a lot of money into, one I personally promoted to my friends and family and one that was part of my personal and professional identity in some way, it might be very upsetting. I might feel betrayed. Personally I don't get invested in companies or products like that. Maybe you don't either. The emotional reaction makes sense if there's high emotional investment. Whether the emotional investment is rational is an entirely different question.
Const-me 2y ago
I don’t have particularly strong emotional reaction, but IMO the ad is horrible. Destroying functional stuff with a hydraulic press is a waste of planet’s resources. Destroying musical instruments, sculptures and other cultural artifacts is not too far from burning books, it’s barbaric. Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad not gonna survive the press either. It’s just a consumer electronic device which doesn’t even have IP68 water protection.
- dartos 2y ago
  > Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad The real issue with the ad that nobody is talking about. False advertising
anonymouse008 2y ago
Apple’s marketing tells us who they are proud to be. As someone who attempts to defend the AppStore fees and process as valuable, seeing this makes me question if Apple has gotten “too cool” to be a good steward. So, while it may not feel like it to you, from those who have invested in the brand this is a betrayal and a real emotion. Oh, and I get through the day just fine. It just reminds me to never relent on my values.
r0fl 2y ago
A subsection of society has too much free time and few (what people in developing countries would call) real problems. So they get triggered by mundane things and tweet prayer hands for every news headline that hits the 24 hour news cycle
sandworm101 2y ago
>> people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me. It is more than the ad. Apple is a cornerstone of many people's lives. Their online existence, the bulk of their personhood these days, flows through apple systems. Apple is basically a quazi-partner. Such people feel they must react defensively, which is the root of fanboy culture. Such people therefore get very worried when they see unequivocal mistakes. A fanboy will then turn quickly, joining the anti crowd in an effort to correct the mistake asap. As soon as apple make sufficient recompense, they will return to the defensive. (See every mistake ever made by a K-pop star.)
cm2012 2y ago
A lot of people don't like the idea of destroying physical things, it makes them feel ick. Same reason people tend to hoard too much shit.
- culopatin 2y ago
  People are concerned about waste forget that once the item is produced, it’s already waste. Just because it’s in their definition of “worth it” doesn’t mean it’s not going to end up in a landfill in the near future.
mc32 2y ago
I think the problem is that people are too ‘connected’ emotionally with products or companies (that speaks to their effective advertising) so when a company’s pubic personae diverge from their own view, they become like the abusive partner in a relationship that doesn’t allow any daylight between themselves and this other entity. They feel betrayal. I think they invest too much emotion into inanimate things.
boesboes 2y ago
tbf, I've always found apple commercials cringy af. And I can understand a bit of a visceral reaction to the message, but I don't see such over-the-topness with other crap such as AI content spam, music etc. But the response seems outsized. it just seems like bullshit. I think most of these reactions are not genuine, just all aboard the rage-train! Or maybe they are all just jealous because they can't afford apple products ;-)
Unfrozen0688 2y ago
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gregd 2y ago
One more opinion in the mix. I grew up in extreme poverty as a child who also happened to have a keen interest in music. I could never develop this keen interest because of course, the cost of instruments was too much for my mom to handle. That same kid also got to watch Pete Townsend (and others) get superstar status, while breaking instruments during a performance. It was heartbreaking to me that he didn't just donate those instruments to disadvantaged kids and still bothers me today. So, while I understand the intention of the ad, when you couple that, with Apple products being too pricey for a lot of people, yeah, it bothered me.
jajko 2y ago
Well, I gave it a go and saw it, just fyi I get through my life just fine and one of those seemingly few folks without childhood/mental issues with good life so far and amazing small kids. No apple products owner, wife has mini 13 and she is not happy with it. Its not the worst ad by any means, I am used to seeing russians blown to pieces in ukraine at this point, but the arrogance man, stemming from first frame was a bit over the top even for me and left bitter taste of it all when intentions were opposite. How this passed all the managerial reviews is beyond me. Actually I get it - they all thought its fine, which also tells you something. Not shocking in any way, to me apple is subtly arrogant for many years and the main reason for me going to (more expensive but way more open) competition. That and consistently fanatical uncritical apple crowd, also visible here.
willcipriano 2y ago
[flagged]
127 2y ago
I think their emotions are valid, even if you're dismissive of them.
viraptor 2y ago
I think there's a weird false equivalency being often mentioned with this topic. Yes, I'd say this ad was stress inducing for me. But that doesn't mean I have issues getting through the day. It's not some kind of weakness that makes my life worse because I feel things. I can see something and be stressed or disgusted about it and then move on and feel happy about things that are nice. Feeling things doesn't need to force you to do anything. It's fine to just experience them, and maybe act on them if needed. But the idea that those feelings somehow have to take over your life is misguided.
Dalewyn 2y ago
I'd wager these are just snowflakes, but there are so many people that snowflakes still amount to a significant amount even if they are nonetheless a minority. The internet also serves to amplify their noise.
asoneth 2y ago
I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing. As I watched the video I found the destruction beautiful and heartbreaking. If it had been used as an artistic commentary on, oh I don't know, our underappreciation of good tools, the undermining of art under fascism, the dumbing-down and compression of culture under capitalism, etc that would have been interesting. But the reveal at the end is that the force destroying all these artistic tools is none other than one of the world's richest companies using the spectacle to hawk their latest must-have gewgaw. And the delicious irony of Apple unintentionally positioning itself as the unstoppable, soulless destroyer of art and culture is just chef's kiss perfection. I'm honestly sad they pulled the ad. But to your question, I haven't noticed any impact of strong emotions on a daily basis except that I get overly excited sometimes when talking about things and have to bring a tissue to movies. I'm similarly curious what it's like for people who don't really have emotional reactions to things. I work with folks like this, and I am curious. Do they feel things when they look at art, listen to music, read literature, look at photos, or is it just sort of background ambiance? When evaluating art do they plot perfection on the horizontal of a graph and importance on the vertical to yield the measure of its greatness?
- allturtles 2y ago
  > I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing. I can still get a bit misty-eyed just thinking about reading "Love You Forever" or "Guess How Much I Love You", and my kids outgrew those books years ago.
Boogie_Man 2y ago
Hyperbolic internet rhetoric has resulted in the need to phrase everything as if you're a psych ward patient who cries when it rains because the sky is sad. If everything is a pitched battle between good and evil, anything less than screaming and beating your chest is weakness in the face of existential threats. The squeaky wheel gets the grease so everyone is squealing as loud as they can. Textual histrionics from people laying on their couch or sitting on the toilet staring at a little screen. It's the same as typing "ROFL LMAO" when you actually just lightly exhaled through your nose. It's infantile and distracts from "meaningful discourse". They're allowing themselves to be seriously psychologically manipulated (or are playacting along with it), but it just happens to be in a negative way this time.
- johnchristopher 2y ago
  Had to scroll through 30 replies to find the word hyperbole :).
medellin 2y ago
I think this is part of the issue. I really dont want to have the discussion because im sick of trying to understand how everyone is mad about everything. At a certain point it’s mentally draining for me just so people can feel morally superior because they are more PC than you. Im done with it and a lot of others are also.
joelrunyon 2y ago
I got annoyed with it, then went and fixed it in 5 minutes and went on with my day - https://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/1788312003670360320 https://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/1788312003670360320
jrm4 2y ago
Honestly, y'all, it's beyond hilarious that the top comment here on Hacker News is "These things you people have, these ...feelings...these are strange and you seem weak. Boop beep boop." Sometimes the stereotypes aren't wrong, huh.
- CatWChainsaw 2y ago
  That's why there's so many comments responding to this callout that are, dare I say, defensive.
mattmaroon 2y ago
My honest thought when I see this sort of reaction is that you know life is good because if it weren’t, people wouldn’t have the emotional energy to waste on something like this.
Retr0id 2y ago
I'm more concerned for the people who feel nothing. Being desensitized isn't a virtue. The marketing strategy of one of the largest companies in the world is not a triviality. If someone's reaction was literally debilitating, sure, that's probably pathological, but I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling strongly about something like this, especially when such advertising is specifically engineered to evoke an emotional response.
- 2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
  I don't like any of their stupid ads but I'm not harmed by them and I don't need an apology.
pickleberto 2y ago
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1-6 2y ago
I think words may only convey a certain level of thought but cannot convey intensity well.
2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
Nailed it. I think it's also concerning that Apple and other companies cave and apologize for the most inane minutiae.
spamizbad 2y ago
Let's not fall into the trap of assuming you can't have a feeling if you don't speak it into existence. People stating their feelings are actually doing Apple a big favor. The alternative is nobody says anything but keeps their feelings bottled up and simply walk around with a negative opinion of Apple because of the advertisement.
smokinjoe 2y ago
I think it's this unconscious desire to share strong opinions about any large enough bit of news. While I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to have personable opinions about anything large or small - I've noticed more and more that people just need to satiate this hunger to share it. And it's typically devoid of any nuance, it's shallow, quick, and distilled down into this form that begs people to react. I see it mostly on reddit on posts that have hundreds to one or two thousand comments where 50% of the replies have almost the identical opinion. Everyone has this need to share it, even if it isn't nearly that original. There's probably some societal change that someone significantly smarter than I can speak to, but this whole "digital town square" approach has kinda turned into a maelstrom of the most toxic opinions that people probably don't hold _that strongly_ if you asked them face-to-face in person.
commandlinefan 2y ago
I'm still having a hard time believing that anybody was actually disturbed or offended by this ad and that it's not part of a clever guerilla marketing campaign by Apple to trick people into watching the ad.
bkandel 2y ago
I had a strongly negative emotional reaction to the ad. Dwelling on crushing musical instruments, kids' toys, books, sculptures, and then the paint spurting out at the end into a depressing post-industrial warehouse -- something about it really affected me. It's not like I'm debilitated for the rest of the day, but it definitely makes me feel less positively about the ipad advertised.
deleted 2y ago
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gofreddygo 2y ago
Well the Ad is disturbing to me. I can see the intent and it's not malicious. But the backlash is good IMO. Because it sets a stake in the ground and a point to be brought up in the room when the marketing team wants to show a hydraulic press, a chain saw, flame thrower, a wrecking ball or a bulldozer destroying things for the purpose of grabbing my attention in their next ad. An animation of all those nice items magically squeezing into the iPad one at a time, each contributing to an ongoing song/theme would sell far far better.
dougb5 2y ago
I was stressed and angered by the ad, and I think I get through life fine, otherwise -- or at least, I can't think of another ad in the past decade that has caused me this reaction. It wouldn't be as bad if it were detached from its purpose as an Apple ad, or if it played as a short before a Pixar movie. It's because it's the biggest (or 2nd biggest?) company in the world giving us a wrenching visual depiction of a future in which so many beautiful things from the past and the present are squashed into a soulless rectangle.

thinkingtoilet 2y ago

I agree. This a the quote from the article, someone called it the "destruction of human experience". We have to be a little bit tougher than this, right?

red_trumpet 2y ago
I agree that one can see the ad as depicting "destruction of human experience". This does not mean that my day is ruined after viewing the ad. Disliking the ad and calling it what it is does not mean one is not tough.
waynesonfire 2y ago
and i'm shocked that your response is to tell people to man up cry babies. maybe try reflecting why there was a reaction to the ad from a human experience perspective. there is a reason apple appologized instead of telling them to man up as you're suggesting.
- camillomiller 2y ago
  The fact that you think it’s normal to use the word “shocked” to describe how you feel after reading an anonymous comment on an internet board about a tv ad ironically reinforces the entire point.
- Satam 2y ago
  If they apologized it's because it's the best PR move. The execs definitely aren't sweating over "destruction of human experience".
  - bluefirebrand 2y ago
    If that's true, then it's probably because they've never had a human experience in their lives
- frereubu 2y ago
  "We have to be a little bit tougher than this" is not the same as "Man up cry babies". That's a hyperbolic rephrasing which I think significantly misses the tone of the original.
- ricardonunez 2y ago
  Apple did it because that’s the typical corporate response to a backlash, that said nobody should tell you to man up, you feel the way you feel and that’s it, just a reminder that it goes in both sides of the spectrum.
financltravsty 2y ago
I don't feel anything from the ad, but if you're numb to a pointed reminder of the towering tetragrammaton that ushered in perhaps the most anti-human technology we have seen (phones), then perhaps you need to be a little more open to experiencing the rawness of life. There's no strength in disassociating from the ills of the world. Useful in short bursts, but as a default state I would say is a problem. Now that doesn't mean the other side -- the histrionics -- are "right," but there is a balance to be found here.
gregd 2y ago
I don't think this is so much about this ONE ad but rather, it contributes to the overall feeling that real connections, like art, music, and architecture, are being lost daily. Music programs are constantly being cut. Architects can't find work. Woodworkers can't make a living making custom furniture. Sam Ash music stores are shuttering ALL their locations. Everything has been commodified. And Apple just piled on.
- BEEdwards 2y ago
  >Everything has been commodified. welcome to capitalism...
UncleMeat 2y ago
If you dig through twitter, you can find somebody saying something dramatic about basically everything. It might be hyperbole to communicate a feeling. It might be somebody who is legitimately unwell and reacts unreasonably strongly to people. It might be somebody faking it. You can be almost certain that people using this language don't expect to be aggregated into news articles and then be used as evidence that the world is getting too soft.
Bluestrike2 2y ago
I can read "the destruction of human experience" two ways. One, it's a just a descriptive label of the symbolism the act of crushing creative instruments/tools/materials represents, even if that symbolism is clearly not something the creators ever intended. Two, is the more hyperbolic--or perhaps even hysteric--you're literally destroying the human experience and it's hurting me emotionally take. A lot of the commentary on social media is probably closer to the former, but it doesn't discount the latter. It's pretty obvious what marketing intended. You take a bunch of creative instruments/tools/materials, squish them inside the iPad, and you get to carry them with you with your iPad. Heck, I'm almost certain it's been done before as a cartoon gag: everything gets sucked into one super tool. There's probably an old Looney Tunes episode with something close enough--maybe stuffing books inside someone's head to teach them the material--to make my point. In any case, the metaphor's pretty clear; unfortunately, the Crush ad completely botches it. There's no mechanism by which the props 'enter' the iPad. Instead, you just see wanton destruction, the hydraulic press lifts up, and then there's an iPad sitting on a giant chunk of steel. Paint is dripping down the side, but the press itself is oddly sterile. The mess? The parts? The paint? All gone on the press except for what's left on the floor. And if it's smashed into itty bitty bits, even if it's now metaphorically "inside" the iPad, what's the point? Did the press somehow squeeze out some metaphysical meaning from the tools that got sucked into the iPad? Now throw in some of the angst about the possibility of generative AI replacing some creative jobs. If the idea is that an iPad will 'replace' those tools--or more likely, just let the user take them with you wherever they go--there's an implicit assumption that the user values those tools and would like them so close at hand. So literally destroying tools that, for many artists and creatives, are objects of affection closely tied to memories that are critical parts of their self-conception, is an absurd kind of symbolism that would have never made it off the drawing board under Jobs. People tend to respect their tools, and filming their meaningless destruction is going to rub people the wrong way even though it really has no actual impact. Especially with an ad that's simultaneously trying to get you to buy the product they were symbolically destroyed to revel. Will Crush turn many people off from buying a new iPad when they need one? Almost certainly not. But it does underscore that Apple's changed as as a company. Apple users--myself included--might still love the products they buy, but it doesn't seem like they're in love with them like it once seemed (for way too many of their users).

buro9 2y ago

> How do those of you who feel so strongly about this ad get through daily life? Whilst I didn't feel a great deal watching the video, this statement is very presumptive. Reversed: How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things? Should perhaps we, those who didn't feel a great deal here, not reflect on whether we might be feeling as much of life as we could, empathise more deeply, care about broader things, consider life as more than ration or reason? It didn't bother me one way or another, but I also didn't assume anything. I can imagine a life far more rich just by feeling more, seeing more colours in the same palette, tasting more when eating food, and feeling so much more when just experiencing life... perhaps for all the benefit of feeling more, there's just the sharper edge that sometimes you feel more about something like an Apple advert.

llm_trw 2y ago
>How does one get through daily life _not_ feeling so strongly about things? I feel strongly about important things, not all things.
- haswell 2y ago
  Many people (and I’m one of those people) feel that the preservation of craftsmanship and human created art/music is extremely important to a healthy society.
  - llm_trw 2y ago
    Every object in that video was mass produced rubbish so craftsmanship survived unharmed.
    - haswell 2y ago
      Many musical instruments are still made by hand to this day. Many of the cameras still in active use were too. And even if you pick up a crappy starter guitar, learning it is a purely human endeavor, propagating the mastery that has been passed down through generations. And I have no idea how to reconcile “it’s all mass produced rubbish” with “craftsmanship survived unharmed”. These are in direct conflict.

bsaul 2y ago

Strong emotional reaction to anything is pretty much the norm nowadays. However, i feel like apple's ad made people visualize a true deep concern about the future of art (and humanity) with regards to the recent advancements of AI. The fact that the number 1 consumer hardware company in the world blatantly acknowledge the fact that computers are going to generate every piece of content automatically in the future is quite troubling. (of course, that's probably not exactly what they meant, as someone will have to push that "generate" button on the ipad, at some point).

frereubu 2y ago
I think this is it. Imagine if instead there was a "siphon" effect where the instruments get miniaturised / sucked into the iPad. I don't think anyone would have been upset by that. It's the crushing that's at issue, and it does touch on an anxiety around the digital experience crushing the life out of the more physical / personal engagement with music.

foobar_______ 2y ago

You help me feel sane. People, it is a commercial. Nothing more. Don't get your panties in a bundle. If you don't like it, change the channel, don't buy their product, go outside on a hike. The things people get upset about today is fascinating. GO OUTSIDE

alt227 2y ago
Sounds like you are getting your panties in a bundle about other people getting their panties in a bundle. Why do you care so much what other random people on the internet think? Maybe it is you who needs to go outside and stop reading these comments which make you feel 'insane'?
- superidiot1932 2y ago
  And why do you care so much about what foobar thinks to the point of passively-aggressive asking him? "Why do you care about X" questions are inane.
  - alt227 2y ago
    ....and you have continued the pattern by joining in and asking me the question. Well done!
dwallin 2y ago
Why get so bothered by other people being upset? Apple is going to be fine, you don’t need to worry on their behalf. No need to get your undergarments of choice in a twist. Good opportunity to step outside and get some fresh air.
- mindwok 2y ago
  It doesn’t really ‘bother’ me and I’m not worrying on their behalf. If you’re actually interested in why I’m worried, it makes me question whether there’s less emotional resilience in our society, and I value emotional resilience because I think we need it when life truly tests us.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

faitswulff 2y ago

Even if you disagree, I would think that the volume or strength of the comments would teach you something about the situation. Instead, it’s the children who are wrong.

mindwok 2y ago
I explicitly said I’m not saying it’s wrong. Im asking if the emotional sensitivity to these things impacts them in daily life.
- JoeAltmaier 2y ago
  In a sarcastic, dismissive way, that implied superiority. It was a pretty crass way to phrase the question. I learned far more from that than any answer.

cultofmetatron 2y ago

no kidding. there's a bunch of stuff going on in teh world (some of which risk getting me downvoted if I mention them) that are way more distressing. its not like they destroyed anything truly sacred or one of a kind.

PedroBatista 2y ago

We are in a age where most interactions are supercharged with melodramatic theatrics. Not to dunk too much on the artistic community, but when it comes to these 4 day dramas all the over the top adjectives are applied. Very eloquent but the feelings most of the time aren't even real. It's a performance.

deaddodo 2y ago
Not to mention, and this is something I have to explain to my European friends all the time when they get all of their information on the US from it's media, Americans speak in hyperbole all the time. It's how they talk to each other ("omg, you're my best friend", "I almost died", "That's the biggest tower I've ever seen", "People are literally dying on the streets due to private healthcare", etc), so if you read it without the context you would think this ad is the worst thing in the world.
- ornornor 2y ago
  Side note: because literally has been so often used to mean figuratively, literally is now acceptable to mean figuratively. They even updated the definition in the dictionary: the word now means literally AND its opposite.
  - brabel 2y ago
    Yep, the dictionary's job is to tell you how people are using language, not to tell people how to use words :). And don't people love to make a mess with words' meanings?!
  - sapeint 2y ago
    Literally has been used in that way for literally hundreds of years. From Charles Dickens ("He had literally feasted his eyes on the culprit.") and Charlotte Bronte ("Literally I was the apple of his eye"), to Mark Twain (in Adventures of Tom Sawyer) and F. Scott Fitzgerald (in The Great Gatsby) -- among others. This "Literally shouldn't be used figuratively" is a rather modern construct that was artificially created.

shakiXBT 2y ago

It seemed like a fun ad to me and that was it. People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies?

waynesonfire 2y ago
no, because the ad is very deliberate about what it's trying to represent. The intention is to suggest that physical tools that have been used for thousansd of years to create culture, art, and technonolgy and that themselves are art, are gabrage. the ad suggests an apple computer that is bound by limits of it's software and harware, that cannot be further refined, cannot be repaired, and severs the human senses from experiencing the tools it claims to deprecate, is superior. it's a bad message. they may as well have smashing the statue of david and shown that the mac's default background is a picture of it. and because someone has a negative reaction to an ad doesn't imply they got "angry" over it or need tougher skin or are somehome so sensitive they can't function in society. it's being able to reflect how something is making you feel. and it feels like a shitty ad on many levels.
- kapp_in_life 2y ago
  To me it says "Look at all this stuff you can do with an ipad now, and in a thinner form factor. It used to take a room full of stuff to do this. Isn't that awesome?". You might not be angry but you're using pretty malicious language to assign intent to the ad that doesn't seem present to me.
wiseowise 2y ago
> People have to go through mental gymnastics to justify being angry at it, but do they feel the same way when these objects get destroyed in movies? Context matters. Here it looks like it's a zero-sum: iPad is crushing everything else.

cjk2 2y ago

I’m get the feeling some people are pretty bored and boring and collective outrage is an emotional release in some way.

gsich 2y ago

Staged outrage.

la_oveja 2y ago

i can dislike the ad or even find it repugnant, and the moment it ends still be on with my life. last time i checked having opinions on things was not frowned upon.

madeofpalk 2y ago

It's possible to have a negative reaction to something, but otherwise be fine. I don't think there's many people sobbing uncontrollably on the subway because they saw this ad. All sorts of media - whether movies or books or games or ads - are designed to make some kind of reaction in the audience. Dismissing "I don't like this" as a valid reaction is also dismissing "I like this", which seems silly.

mindwok 2y ago
I’m not dismissing it, I’m just curious about it. For me, if I was having strong negative reactions to things frequently it would impact my wellbeing. I wonder if thats not the case for these folks.

ornornor 2y ago

What bothers me the most is the casual destruction of perfectly functional, expensive (for some) items. It’s glorifying waste, and I’m sure there are individuals or families that would kill for the chance to get a piano, a trumpet, or the insanely overpriced Macs they can’t afford, while Apple is crushing them just to sell us more ewaste (seeing how apple in particular is at the forefront of anti repair)…

Tarq0n 2y ago
Now think of how much of these items the budget of any given commercial could pay for. Focusing on just the literal few in view in front of you is missing the forest for the trees.
- ornornor 2y ago
  Not necessarily, it sells a message and an image on top of just wasting the large amount of money that any ad costs.
uxp100 2y ago
Nah, you basically can’t give pianos away.
- dartos 2y ago
  I’d take a free piano. Those things are expensive
  - wilsonnb3 2y ago
    Open up your local Craigslist and you will probably find a bunch of them.
  - kzrdude 2y ago
    They are expensive to take too. (Need movers and piano tuner)

dwallin 2y ago

The WHOLE point of the ad in the first place was to make people feel strong positive emotions toward Apple products. It turns out they misjudged and for many people it didn’t evoke the type of emotions they thought it would. It’s not like people are up in arms about a spec sheet. I think you are being extremely irrational in expecting people to not feel passionately about random things. Companies spend insane amounts of money influencing consumer sentiment for good reasons.

__rito__ 2y ago

Nah, it's not exactly like that. I get through regular life okay, but this a $1T company with hundreds of billions in cash, profit driven, using child labor in China indirectly, and engaging in walled-garden policies makes it worse. They make all these gadgets that replaces incomes from many manufactures and puts it on a single hand. That's bad enough. Now, they destroy all these beautiful things- a piano, a guitar, a camera, and a lot of valuable things to make a point that this single silicon-made, soulless corporate company-produced, cheap exploited labor induced thing is going to replace them. Those things of aesthetics and soul are destroyed to give rise to this thing. That hits hard for me. Seriously. I thought that I was being a real snowflake when this ad made me uncomfortable, but was glad to see this backlash in large numbers. Maybe people still have souls. You can give a thousand lessons in "nature of real circumstances and geopolitics", and this ad with all its backstory will still be wrong to me.

mindwok 2y ago
Thanks, this for me is the best articulation for why someone might feel so strongly.
macspoofing 2y ago
[flagged]
- itishappy 2y ago
  Really really. What makes that so hard to believe?
  - macspoofing 2y ago
    Because it's the most generic ad you can have. All it says is: "Look how many things iPad can help you do". This ad could have been made for any computing device released in the last 20 years (or more!). It's completely generic and corporate. This is a quintessential first-world freak-out - take something that is completely inconsequential and work yourself into a hysteria.
- 2y ago

hydroreadsstuff 2y ago

I can tell you that I watched the recording, cringed for a few seconds and skipped it, and moved on with my life. After the outrage, revisiting my 3 seconds of feelings, I tend to agree that destroying nice things isn't a great thing to do in an ad.

haswell 2y ago

I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine. I don’t understand the insinuation that people who disliked it must be somehow unable to navigate daily life. Here’s why I disliked it: I’m one of those people who finds themselves concerned and sometimes sad at the erosion of the humanity in art. Social media and AI are changing the nature of artistic expression in a way that often feels destructive. I’ve started to intentionally unplug and use devices less in order to stay connected to what I see as the good stuff in life. To me, this ad is the culmination of what I dislike about tech. If they had played the ad in reverse, I think I’d have really liked it. iPad as a tool for expression. Instead, it’s presented as a tool that supersedes expression. I suspect Apple was trying to communicate the former. Edit to respond to the edit: highly sensitive people who have visceral reactions to stuff like this are canaries in the coal mine. We need them just as much as we need substantive discussion here. Some of the backlash also originated in Japan, where culturally this was quite offensive.

tkgally 2y ago
> I strongly disliked the ad. I also get through my days just fine. Same here. And besides disliking the ad myself, I imagined that many other people would dislike it too. I also wondered how on earth it could have gotten the go sign within Apple. From the outside, at least, Apple looks like the epitome of a cautious, deliberate company. I would have thought there would have been plenty of stages in the approval process where it would have been shot down.
- haswell 2y ago
  This is a good point. It does make me question what’s happening at Apple when something like this gets all the way through.
  - giobox 2y ago
    If you watch this ad back to back with the classic "1984" Mac ad, I found it hard not to feel that Apple has become the "Big Brother" it once despised.
- 2y ago

conartist6 2y ago

I doubt you'd feel incensed unless you felt like you were also in the hydraulic press. Goodness, there's not any technology that would make artists as useless as their instruments and tools, is there? That would make this ad really relevant.

fhd2 2y ago

I don't care about Apple, so I don't care about the ad. It lowers my (already pretty low) opinion of them, but that's about it. If this kind of thing was done by a company I'm a huge supporter of, sunk a lot of money into, one I personally promoted to my friends and family and one that was part of my personal and professional identity in some way, it might be very upsetting. I might feel betrayed. Personally I don't get invested in companies or products like that. Maybe you don't either. The emotional reaction makes sense if there's high emotional investment. Whether the emotional investment is rational is an entirely different question.

Const-me 2y ago

I don’t have particularly strong emotional reaction, but IMO the ad is horrible. Destroying functional stuff with a hydraulic press is a waste of planet’s resources. Destroying musical instruments, sculptures and other cultural artifacts is not too far from burning books, it’s barbaric. Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad not gonna survive the press either. It’s just a consumer electronic device which doesn’t even have IP68 water protection.

dartos 2y ago
> Finally, I believe the ad is misleading because the ipad The real issue with the ad that nobody is talking about. False advertising

anonymouse008 2y ago

Apple’s marketing tells us who they are proud to be. As someone who attempts to defend the AppStore fees and process as valuable, seeing this makes me question if Apple has gotten “too cool” to be a good steward. So, while it may not feel like it to you, from those who have invested in the brand this is a betrayal and a real emotion. Oh, and I get through the day just fine. It just reminds me to never relent on my values.

r0fl 2y ago

A subsection of society has too much free time and few (what people in developing countries would call) real problems. So they get triggered by mundane things and tweet prayer hands for every news headline that hits the 24 hour news cycle

sandworm101 2y ago

>> people had a strong emotional reaction to this does kinda worry me. It is more than the ad. Apple is a cornerstone of many people's lives. Their online existence, the bulk of their personhood these days, flows through apple systems. Apple is basically a quazi-partner. Such people feel they must react defensively, which is the root of fanboy culture. Such people therefore get very worried when they see unequivocal mistakes. A fanboy will then turn quickly, joining the anti crowd in an effort to correct the mistake asap. As soon as apple make sufficient recompense, they will return to the defensive. (See every mistake ever made by a K-pop star.)

cm2012 2y ago

A lot of people don't like the idea of destroying physical things, it makes them feel ick. Same reason people tend to hoard too much shit.

culopatin 2y ago
People are concerned about waste forget that once the item is produced, it’s already waste. Just because it’s in their definition of “worth it” doesn’t mean it’s not going to end up in a landfill in the near future.

mc32 2y ago

I think the problem is that people are too ‘connected’ emotionally with products or companies (that speaks to their effective advertising) so when a company’s pubic personae diverge from their own view, they become like the abusive partner in a relationship that doesn’t allow any daylight between themselves and this other entity. They feel betrayal. I think they invest too much emotion into inanimate things.

boesboes 2y ago

tbf, I've always found apple commercials cringy af. And I can understand a bit of a visceral reaction to the message, but I don't see such over-the-topness with other crap such as AI content spam, music etc. But the response seems outsized. it just seems like bullshit. I think most of these reactions are not genuine, just all aboard the rage-train! Or maybe they are all just jealous because they can't afford apple products ;-)

Unfrozen0688 2y ago

[dead]

gregd 2y ago

One more opinion in the mix. I grew up in extreme poverty as a child who also happened to have a keen interest in music. I could never develop this keen interest because of course, the cost of instruments was too much for my mom to handle. That same kid also got to watch Pete Townsend (and others) get superstar status, while breaking instruments during a performance. It was heartbreaking to me that he didn't just donate those instruments to disadvantaged kids and still bothers me today. So, while I understand the intention of the ad, when you couple that, with Apple products being too pricey for a lot of people, yeah, it bothered me.

jajko 2y ago

Well, I gave it a go and saw it, just fyi I get through my life just fine and one of those seemingly few folks without childhood/mental issues with good life so far and amazing small kids. No apple products owner, wife has mini 13 and she is not happy with it. Its not the worst ad by any means, I am used to seeing russians blown to pieces in ukraine at this point, but the arrogance man, stemming from first frame was a bit over the top even for me and left bitter taste of it all when intentions were opposite. How this passed all the managerial reviews is beyond me. Actually I get it - they all thought its fine, which also tells you something. Not shocking in any way, to me apple is subtly arrogant for many years and the main reason for me going to (more expensive but way more open) competition. That and consistently fanatical uncritical apple crowd, also visible here.

willcipriano 2y ago

[flagged]

127 2y ago

I think their emotions are valid, even if you're dismissive of them.

viraptor 2y ago

I think there's a weird false equivalency being often mentioned with this topic. Yes, I'd say this ad was stress inducing for me. But that doesn't mean I have issues getting through the day. It's not some kind of weakness that makes my life worse because I feel things. I can see something and be stressed or disgusted about it and then move on and feel happy about things that are nice. Feeling things doesn't need to force you to do anything. It's fine to just experience them, and maybe act on them if needed. But the idea that those feelings somehow have to take over your life is misguided.

Dalewyn 2y ago

I'd wager these are just snowflakes, but there are so many people that snowflakes still amount to a significant amount even if they are nonetheless a minority. The internet also serves to amplify their noise.

asoneth 2y ago

I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing. As I watched the video I found the destruction beautiful and heartbreaking. If it had been used as an artistic commentary on, oh I don't know, our underappreciation of good tools, the undermining of art under fascism, the dumbing-down and compression of culture under capitalism, etc that would have been interesting. But the reveal at the end is that the force destroying all these artistic tools is none other than one of the world's richest companies using the spectacle to hawk their latest must-have gewgaw. And the delicious irony of Apple unintentionally positioning itself as the unstoppable, soulless destroyer of art and culture is just chef's kiss perfection. I'm honestly sad they pulled the ad. But to your question, I haven't noticed any impact of strong emotions on a daily basis except that I get overly excited sometimes when talking about things and have to bring a tissue to movies. I'm similarly curious what it's like for people who don't really have emotional reactions to things. I work with folks like this, and I am curious. Do they feel things when they look at art, listen to music, read literature, look at photos, or is it just sort of background ambiance? When evaluating art do they plot perfection on the horizontal of a graph and importance on the vertical to yield the measure of its greatness?

allturtles 2y ago
> I have strong positive and negative emotional reactions to things on a daily basis -- I sometimes tear up reading books to my children, have emotional responses to songs, that sort of thing. I can still get a bit misty-eyed just thinking about reading "Love You Forever" or "Guess How Much I Love You", and my kids outgrew those books years ago.

Boogie_Man 2y ago

Hyperbolic internet rhetoric has resulted in the need to phrase everything as if you're a psych ward patient who cries when it rains because the sky is sad. If everything is a pitched battle between good and evil, anything less than screaming and beating your chest is weakness in the face of existential threats. The squeaky wheel gets the grease so everyone is squealing as loud as they can. Textual histrionics from people laying on their couch or sitting on the toilet staring at a little screen. It's the same as typing "ROFL LMAO" when you actually just lightly exhaled through your nose. It's infantile and distracts from "meaningful discourse". They're allowing themselves to be seriously psychologically manipulated (or are playacting along with it), but it just happens to be in a negative way this time.

johnchristopher 2y ago
Had to scroll through 30 replies to find the word hyperbole :).

medellin 2y ago

I think this is part of the issue. I really dont want to have the discussion because im sick of trying to understand how everyone is mad about everything. At a certain point it’s mentally draining for me just so people can feel morally superior because they are more PC than you. Im done with it and a lot of others are also.

joelrunyon 2y ago

I got annoyed with it, then went and fixed it in 5 minutes and went on with my day - https://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/1788312003670360320 https://twitter.com/joelrunyon/status/1788312003670360320

jrm4 2y ago

Honestly, y'all, it's beyond hilarious that the top comment here on Hacker News is "These things you people have, these ...feelings...these are strange and you seem weak. Boop beep boop." Sometimes the stereotypes aren't wrong, huh.

CatWChainsaw 2y ago
That's why there's so many comments responding to this callout that are, dare I say, defensive.

mattmaroon 2y ago

My honest thought when I see this sort of reaction is that you know life is good because if it weren’t, people wouldn’t have the emotional energy to waste on something like this.

Retr0id 2y ago

I'm more concerned for the people who feel nothing. Being desensitized isn't a virtue. The marketing strategy of one of the largest companies in the world is not a triviality. If someone's reaction was literally debilitating, sure, that's probably pathological, but I don't think there's anything wrong with feeling strongly about something like this, especially when such advertising is specifically engineered to evoke an emotional response.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago
I don't like any of their stupid ads but I'm not harmed by them and I don't need an apology.

pickleberto 2y ago

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1-6 2y ago

I think words may only convey a certain level of thought but cannot convey intensity well.

2OEH8eoCRo0 2y ago

Nailed it. I think it's also concerning that Apple and other companies cave and apologize for the most inane minutiae.

spamizbad 2y ago

Let's not fall into the trap of assuming you can't have a feeling if you don't speak it into existence. People stating their feelings are actually doing Apple a big favor. The alternative is nobody says anything but keeps their feelings bottled up and simply walk around with a negative opinion of Apple because of the advertisement.

smokinjoe 2y ago

I think it's this unconscious desire to share strong opinions about any large enough bit of news. While I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing to have personable opinions about anything large or small - I've noticed more and more that people just need to satiate this hunger to share it. And it's typically devoid of any nuance, it's shallow, quick, and distilled down into this form that begs people to react. I see it mostly on reddit on posts that have hundreds to one or two thousand comments where 50% of the replies have almost the identical opinion. Everyone has this need to share it, even if it isn't nearly that original. There's probably some societal change that someone significantly smarter than I can speak to, but this whole "digital town square" approach has kinda turned into a maelstrom of the most toxic opinions that people probably don't hold _that strongly_ if you asked them face-to-face in person.

commandlinefan 2y ago

I'm still having a hard time believing that anybody was actually disturbed or offended by this ad and that it's not part of a clever guerilla marketing campaign by Apple to trick people into watching the ad.

bkandel 2y ago

I had a strongly negative emotional reaction to the ad. Dwelling on crushing musical instruments, kids' toys, books, sculptures, and then the paint spurting out at the end into a depressing post-industrial warehouse -- something about it really affected me. It's not like I'm debilitated for the rest of the day, but it definitely makes me feel less positively about the ipad advertised.

deleted 2y ago

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gofreddygo 2y ago

Well the Ad is disturbing to me. I can see the intent and it's not malicious. But the backlash is good IMO. Because it sets a stake in the ground and a point to be brought up in the room when the marketing team wants to show a hydraulic press, a chain saw, flame thrower, a wrecking ball or a bulldozer destroying things for the purpose of grabbing my attention in their next ad. An animation of all those nice items magically squeezing into the iPad one at a time, each contributing to an ongoing song/theme would sell far far better.

dougb5 2y ago

I was stressed and angered by the ad, and I think I get through life fine, otherwise -- or at least, I can't think of another ad in the past decade that has caused me this reaction. It wouldn't be as bad if it were detached from its purpose as an Apple ad, or if it played as a short before a Pixar movie. It's because it's the biggest (or 2nd biggest?) company in the world giving us a wrenching visual depiction of a future in which so many beautiful things from the past and the present are squashed into a soulless rectangle.