Infinite Loop

Mac Passion and its Abuse

The Germans were passionate about their heritage. Wagner and Hitler used that passion. Muslims are devoted and passionate. Osama bin Laden uses it for death. When an audience brings a predisposed passion to the table we must be careful. And Mac users are passionate, if nothing else.

I am a Mac user. I am a die-hard Mac user. It empowers me insofar as it transfers the power of a Turing Machine into my hands much more easily (a higher power-transfer-rate) than Windows at least. I feel empowered with my Mac because it in fact empowers me, and in this case I trust my 'subjective' feelings because they have objective grounding.

Passion and Loyalty

Many Mac users feel the same way. They are all-out loyalists to the Mac. We know all the metaphors and talk of the "Mac cult". I think, wait, I know, that while it can be taken to extremes, Mac loyalty is well-grounded. Once this loyalty has bitten you, and you succumb to the bite, there is no going back. You become a loyalist and begin to demand the same of others. The first thing you want to know before you propose to your special sweetie is, "Do you use a Mac and only a Mac?" It may not be as bad as never using Microsoft products (I depend on Office), but you get the point.

Some Mac users are not like this. They use a Mac. And that is all. They are too busy to be enraged by any platform debates. The Mac is there, as Heidegger would say, as a "standing reserve (something just for our use, a resouce)." Sometimes we talk of it as a "only a tool." They are not fanatics or loyalists, they just like to use a Mac. Or maybe it was just the first machine they used. But as matter of fact, many Mac users, I would dare say, are serious about their computer commitments.

So when a Publisher such as myself tries to build a site for Mac users I have to think about this. Now, granted Applelust is not just any old Mac site. We fill a gap for thinking Mac users and academics and technicians. (MacWrite is doing a good job though.) Ask my writers: Applelust is very hard site to write for because its audience so demanding and the other writers set such high standards. But I digress...

As a Publisher I have to consider that my audience has serious loyalties to the Mac. This does not mean that we fail to point out flaws with Apple and Jobs. Reality may get distorted, but it's still there if we look close enough. We have taken them to task many times. But what I have to consider is that these flaws appear to my audience as effronteries to their tastes and strong loyalties. It's serious business, they think, not just a lackluster keynote or bug. No, it's downright personal with them.

Loyal Mac users look for loyal Mac sites. They want brothers and sisters not reporters. A site had better be serious in serious readers' minds. Simple as that. If a loyal Mac user thinks I am just placating him with words I would never utter under oath, he will leave. If he thinks I am only inflaming passions when I myself lack any passion, he will leave. If he thinks I am being baptized just to score points with the family, he will leave. If he thinks I take the posture of prayer when in reality I am thinking about the big game, he will leave. If he thinks there is any disingenuousness on my part, he will leave. In a word: Serious Mac users want the people they look to for information (web sites, 'zines, all of it), to be as passionate and as loyal as they are. Nothing less will do. Why else does CNET have such a bad reputation among many Mac users? Divided loyalties. To a die-hard loyalist divided loyalties are no loyalty at all, in the end.

We are a Mac Community, as I have said many times. We are of like-mind, for the most part. We have our squabbles and fights, but in the end we are all Mac users. We depend on each other. We trust each other. We have immediate fellowship when we meet. We know the secret passwords and handshakes. We speak the same language; we know, and sometimes believe, the same myths; we have a certain framework we think within. We are undivided.

I have to think of this when I publish. I know that I cannot be fake. I know that I cannot fabricate issues (too much of that and at some point people stop taking you seriously). In a word, genuine Mac users want genuine Mac web sites run by genuine Mac users. Passions run high (though not as high as before September 11th). If they think you have divided loyalties you immediately hurt your credibility in a Community where credibility is measured by loyalties. If people think I am just in for a buck, just a company, that too is not good enough, for Apple, they think is not just a company out to make a buck. Jobs has a larger vision.

I have to think about this when I publish. All my writers do. It puts us publishers and writers in a very awkward position. "Awkward, how?" you ask? Moral awkwardness, I answer. Seriously...

When passions run so very high, as they do among some Mac users, people are more likely to be manipulated. It's a matter of probability mind you; people don't desire to be manipulated. I am saying high passion opens up the possibility to a greater degree. That means we as Mac publishers and writers have a responsibility not to abuse that passion. In a word, to enflame this passion to no good end is morally questionable at best.

When the dot com bust started I wrote that I was worried about what Mac sites would do to make up lost revenues. Would content suffer? (Would it suffer more, that is.) Would we see gimmicks? Tricks to get page views? To make up for lost ad revenue one has to get more page views. One might think more content is the answer. It is not. Let me put it this way: To make up for lower ad revenue, I feared that we'd see more content of a superficial nature. Link to anything. Talk about anything. Fabricate issues. Get people mad. Bait people in editorials ("baititorials" we call them). Make up anything. Reduce article size; increase article quantity. Break articles up into five pages so one can get more page views. Keep it short. And lots of it. Quantity is king. Half-baked news stories. Rumors. Degrading others. Pettiness. Unreliability. Reactionary language. Superficial, short articles that waste readers' time. (And we must be careful about wasting people's time, because in fact most people are at work when they read our sites! Our logs show that high-traffic times are between 11AM and 3PM, when people should be working!) All are abuses of predisposed Mac passion.

Art and Technology

And you know what? All these tricks work. Well, they will work for a while. But it can't last. A web site is like a piece of art: We only know a real piece of art because it lasts, and keeps bringing us back. I am not talking about bringing us back this Friday or next Monday. We have enjoyed Monet and Homer for longer than that. Art lasts because it has depth, because there are new truths to be discovered every time we go back to it, because it touches something in us, because it is universal and appeals to something high in our nature. We call it "the test of time." Artifacts that pass the test are few and far in between. Obviously.

So what does this musing about art have to do with abusing Mac passion? Let's think about it... Why would one simply try to arouse predisposed passions? On the Web that is? It's clear — page views (i.e., revenues).

Some say Steve Jobs does the same thing in his keynotes to get people to buy Macs. I am not that cynical though. I think Steve Jobs is a serious person and serious thinker, someone who truly believes that he can make a difference in the world. He's rich, of course, and so doesn't have to worry about money. But this in no way detracts from what he might view as his larger goals, goals larger than simply making sure Apple survives. Apple employees I have talked with in Cupertino, for example, share a vision that they are out to make a difference, not just sell computers.

Now, when one manipulates the predisposed passions of the Mac user by some of the things I spoke of above, such as fabricating issues, arousing anger and other emotions, then neither the product nor the result will pass the test of time. And the test of time is (might be?) an accurate test because it accurately captures something in us, something in all of us, no matter what point in history we live in. For Homer it was homecoming (in the Odyssey), for example. The product, in this case a Greek poem, lasts because the theme is lasting. But a fabrication cannot stand the test of time.

Now most editors, writers, and publishers on the web don't sit down each time they write and ask themselves, "How can I write something lasting?" They (I don't do it consciously anyway) do not ask themselves, "What will become of this article and idea in 5 years?" But maybe that is not the right question. (It's a hard question with no clear answer.) Though the question might not be right, the intention of asking the question is. The intention, if what I have said about the test of time is true, is to find something that lasts, and something can last only if it illustrates a lasting theme. Something illustrates a lasting theme only if it touches us in the ways I mentioned. It might be as simple that the reader learns something he didn't know before reading. In my view, the push for page views and the resultant products spoken of above will not pass the test of time. People will tire of it; people will see through it; people will find it repetitious and finally boring. But Monet and Homer? Never.

Passion Play

By playing with predisposed strong Mac passion, which is manipulation in the final analysis, one cannot have a lasting influence. "What," you ask, "a lasting influence about a computer?" Yes. Why not? The trick is to use the passion to reach beyond it, and not arouse the passion as an end in itself. What this means is that the great loyalties people have for the Mac presents us with great possibilities to teach, to grow, to reach beyond the Mac to higher truths and universal themes, have fun, build relationships, and nurture feelings that we are part of something larger than ourselves that might be meaning-conferring (Community). When people bring a predisposed passion to the table it gives us all kinds of opportunities, opportunities must be handled with care, but which can form the basis of something good in the world.

If the world is a classroom and all of us are merely students, then pedagogical rules apply. One rule is that you have to find a "hook" in the students to get them interested in the subject (what William James called a "live option"), and lead them from there to new ideas — to learning. But if my students had the same passion for philosophy that many Mac users have for the Mac I would be "Teacher of the Year". And what we can teach ranges from rules of design to abstract metaphysical principles; it can be a good belly laugh; it could be about justice even. (But keep in mind what I said, "all of us are students" if the word is a classroom.)

Conclusion

The Mac passion we see and deal with as writers, editors and publishers, is at once fragile and powerful. We must be careful with it. We must take care not to enflame it for lesser ends. We must use it right. And using it right means not abusing it for lower ends or creating issues out of thin air, or not settling down to divide people, or not wasting a reader's time who has taken his time to come to your site. Our readers entrust passion to us, after all. We must respect and not abuse that trust. Who knows, someone's life may be changed, and that lasts most of all.

Dave Schultz

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