If You Don’t Own a Mac, Don’t Talk to Me
Logan Harrison is a self-proclaimed elitist and Mac enthusiast from the Portland area. This is his first of many columns like this to come from him at PC Fastlane.
A conversation I recently had with a Dell user in a Portland Starbucks convinced me that PC users simply aren’t worth talking to. Read more about what caused me to think this way and the interesting conversation after the break.
I was sipping a latte while composing my latest work at Starbucks last week when a person unbeknownst to me sat down nearby. The man, whom we’ll call Joe, had just bought a new Dell Inspiron 1720 laptop. Noticing my Macbook Pro and ignoring my smug expression, he engaged me in a discussion about computers. He told me about his new Inspiron, and asked me how well I liked my Mac. I replied back, stating that the MacBook Pro is the most superb notebook out there par none, thank you very much. Joe took a quick glance at my Mac, and then proceeded to tell me how he had considered a Mac, but was turned away by its high price and incompatibility with the proprietary software he uses at work. He explained how he got his PC for about half the price of my Mac, and I scoffed at him. By this point, it was clear that not only was my Macbook Pro better than Joe’s Inspiron with its Plebeian plastic exterior and cheesy paint job, but it dawned on me that I was intellectually superior to him.
I told Joe point blank that if he expected anyone to take him seriously in life, he had to get a Mac. I didn’t give in to his proprietary software spiel for a minute. My motto is if it doesn’t work on the Mac, it’s not worth using. Joe went on, blubbering and flubbering about how much money he saved, and how Macs were only for unemployed artists and college dropouts.
At this point I got up from my seat and moved to another table. The lesson? Unless someone owns a Mac, he or she is not worth talking to. Call me a douchebag, call me a narcissist elitist if you like. I’m proud to be both. If you’re not bright enough to realize the superior performance offered by Apple computers, then you’re not worth wasting words talking to. And no, buying an iPod will not get you into my elite circle of Mac-using friends. So be a man and buy a Mac. If you’re not ready for a real computer, leave me alone.
“par none”
Only a **** using a mac would make such a basic mistake. It’s bar none my friend.
Your article started out like “something I’d really want to read” and quickly deteriorated. Maybe you’re just being facetious and the joke is over my head?
I’m a recent MacBook Pro convert myself, having come from a similarly-specced ThinkPad before this and a 17-inch mammoth-sized Dell Inspiron before that. Your friend Joe sounds like he’s a little clueless, but you yourself sound like your only justification for dropping an extra $500-1000 on a laptop is “lololol macz ruel M$ droolz” and that doesn’t instill a desire within me to start reading your column on the regular.
We still live in a Windows world, and one of the biggest reasons that the Intel-based Macs available for sale today *are* worth their price premium is that you can still grab all the Windows functionality you do or don’t need in addition to the beauty/elegance/simplicity/turtle-necked-douchebaggery of MacOS. Why didn’t you just fire open VMware Fusion or Parallels and show him how his Windows software would have run on a Mac completely hassle-free? That’s pretty much the perfect stepping stone to show a PC user what they’ve been missing.
I’m thrilled to finally have unfettered access to the Mac software that’s had me drooling for awhile (Adium, TextMate, and Quicksilver make my heart race!), but cutting yourself off from the rest of the world — even if their OS does kinda suck — is pretty blatant ignorance. To be incapable of understanding how someone just wants their software to work and doesn’t really care about trying a new OS and a bunch of awesome software that many Windows-based substitutes exist for is the real definition of ignorance, to me.
Again, I apologize if this whole thing was a prankapples joke article and I just didn’t catch it — but if you’re serious, you’re ridiculous.
Wow. If you are basing the value of your intelligence on a purchase, not only are you “douchebag [and]… a narcissist elitist” but also materialistic. Might I point out that in addition to the error pointed out above, you also have several grammatical errors and a few dangling participles. If this is the Mac-style of intelligence, I’ll remain a PC user, thanks.
I prefer to express my intelligence in conversation, interaction, experience and even test scores over my preferred brand of computer… or my preferred brand of anything, really.
heehee, great column.
Personally, I’ll be first in line to buy a new Mac (I was once a true believer from the beige Powermac days with an 8600/150) when it becomes a respectable gaming platform. I’m not buying any computer that costs two thousand dollars and can’t run Half Life 2 native. It’d be like buying a new BMW that doesn’t turn left!
Good column Logan! Don’t listen to those guys above. They’re what Scott Kelby used to label as “PC weenies”. So I expect to read more “kick PC weenie butt” words from you. Remember that PC weenies try to masquerade as genuine MAC users everyday but eventually they show their true colors.
It took Mac a “Think different” slogan to make all the douchebags who beg to look different to buy a mac.
Now seriously, Claris works never was a match for Office, now mac has Office, the mac processor went bankrupt and they had to change to PC’s intel processors, all mac web browsers died and now even explorer has a mac version, mac had no messenger (it had icq, but icq sucked so bad) until microsoft made msn, and dont make me start with running videogames on mac. Linux users are actually PC users…. and if you dare say mac is better than linux then i guess you are the person not worth talking to…. honestly.
Ohh by the way, If applications that do not run in mac are not worth using then… why bother creating Parallels or VMWare if that statement is true? are videogames not worth using?
Very comical article. Thanks for sharing it. Of course the only problem with elitism is not enough people get involved with it.