Monday 30 July 2012

Apple's latest ads, advertising in general and the fruit of a different Tree

(Comment after being invited to comment regarding the latest ads from Apple - see link in title above)

The 'message' is that you can do things with a Mac very simply (once you know how), and using software that is included with the Mac - which is not just up-market hardware but the only (practical) hardware you can run Mac OSX on. For a Mac is unified software/hardware and not just the box.

In order to 'get attention and hold it, the adverts are trying to use humour, and putting out the 'genius' idea that indicates a support network for the new user. Many new users demographically believe that they are an idiot as far as computers go - or rather that they are clueless regarding the use of such technology.

In order to appeal to one market, Apple inevitably invite derision from those who are relatively literate regarding the use of computers.

Advertising in general is not merely conveying information, but seeks to implant associations, in the minds of many and expresses manipulative intent. Because it is so 'normal' in our times we accept it as almost invisible - and yet it is a kind of warfare being waged.

The inviting via suggestion and insinuation of personal associations that promise a getting or enhancing one's identity from either adopting or hating a brand or product or range of services, is what all advertising tends to join in pushing. This is part of the insanity of our time. It is also reenacting the essential mythos of the apple in the Garden in the Bible story. By listening to a false voice, one seems to become made in one's own image - and exercising a 'freedom' of individual or personal judgement in which one is actually blinded to a true discernment of reality and infatuated with self image; the Prodigal error of an imaginative mind playing all by itself as if it was the thing it imagines.

It is the way of all scams, that they sucker those who seek something 'too good to be true' or that promise more than can actually ever be delivered. The mind that wants to believe its own stories, is manipulatable.

The mentality, and its resultant culture that it embodies, is what is really going on. To see past the deceptions, one has to eat of a different Tree!

It is usually the way that the mentality of the 'top dog' becomes inflated, paranoid and out of touch. 'What is good for me is good for the whole". Such self serving mentality can only call for a fall! But in amongst the tares is a harvest of true service.

There is a process of externalising some aspects of our  'brain' or mind in Information Technology, and Apple are playing a significant role in this rapidly developing extension to our otherwise organic existence, not least in making a 'front end' or user experience, that can actually be used by a very larger portion of people (who otherwise demonstrate a range of resistance or fear regarding the adoption of new technology).

But in 'succeeding' at widespread adoption, There is a losing out to the 'market forces' that are essentially driven by surface desires and short term 'hits'. This cultivates dumb consumers as a sort of cattle for the 'clever' to prey on. That they are 'stupid' is a presumption that is therefore reinforced in EVERY advertisement or PR spin campaign.

It doesn't matter what tools we use so much as the conscious purpose that aligns them to serve the purpose in the heart. 'Identity' conflict is a sort of game that gets out of hand. But there is a great appetite in the human conditioning, for competition and the attempt to personally overcome adversity - hence the Olympic Games - in which all sorts of nonsense is concurrent with shining a spirit of excellence.

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