4 ms·
> It really would have been social suicide to try to make my way in the 2010s professional class with anything other than a MacBook Pro and an iPhone Can someo
by WithinReason 2y ago
> It really would have been social suicide to try to make my way in the 2010s professional class with anything other than a MacBook Pro and an iPhone
Can someone explain this part? It's not something I can relate to at all. Maybe because I'm not from the US?
- ghaff 2y agoMacBooks are common in tech circles but they’re fairly low market share overall. And in my circles iPhones are common but Androids are not rare. That statement is simply false even in the US.
- eru 2y agoProbably, I was also objecting to that (and also don't live in the US). But I wouldn't read too much into that sentence: it's just part of the author's self-indulgent style.
- harvey9 2y agoIt seemed he applied for a job at a place where they judge you on what laptop you carry at the interview. I have seen that attitude in the UK too.
- ghaff 2y agoWhy would I carry a laptop at an interview?
- CalRobert 2y agoTo give a demo? Maybe it’s not fair but I find a Framework running Linux gives a good first impression.
- eru 2y agoI guess it depends on who you are giving a demo to and what kind of demo etc. In tech circles, you would probably make a pretty big impression, if you pulled out an old laptop running MS-DOS (and still did an impressive demo).
- astura 2y agoWho even carries a laptop to a job interview?
- JimDabell 2y ago> The upside was a few years feeling like I was part of the future as I sipped my lattés and floated through the dawning post-industrial era with my sleek silver Apple gadgets. This too. The author just has the drama on everything turned up to a thousand percent. It’s incredibly irritating and made me stop reading.
- akoboldfrying 2y agoThanks for this. These two snippets (yours and GPs) saved me some reading time.
- quitit 2y agoI stopped there too, I said to myself "this is either badly written AI slop, or this person is unhinged."
- eru 2y agoFortunately, the AI slop is getting better by the week.
- friendzis 2y agoReally? Not even being from US, I can attest that simply carrying a silvery laptop or a phone with the half eaten apple logo literally opened doors. Salespeople would have nearly empty iphones besides their personal androids just for the purpose of showing off. The "one of us" mentality has shifted to other things over the years, but some industries still live on the image.
- borgdefenser 2y agoIn the US, Apple has done an all time great job marketing their products. I don't think there is much more too it. "If I didn't buy Apple it would hurt my career". Obviously, completely absurd but how else can you grow a company to be worth 3.3 trillion selling tech gadgets at a massive premium. It is easy to convince oneself too that this marketing is factual reality after spending so much money too. I mean that new iphone wasn't an expense, it was a career investment!
- quitit 2y agoThere's quite a bit of hyperbole in the article, but that part reads like a marketer's dream. Imagine that: The idea that all you need to do to solve your social cohesion problems is to buy something. How incredible would such a proposition be! We all know very well that buying something isn't the difference between why our peers will or won't engage with us. However devaluing others into superficial strawman is an accessible coping mechanism for social rejection. When children say something like this, it's because they're not aware they're being bullied and buying the <thing> isn't going to fix it. When an adult says it, it's a bit more concerning - it shows that they perhaps have certain unaddressed social anxieties, or are avoiding dealing with their antisocial behaviours that are leading to their social rejection.
- JohnFen 2y agoI'm in the US and I can't relate to it either. I don't doubt that there are subcultures where this is a thing, but it was never a universal issue.