House of Eratosthenes

Practical as the Lotus and Sprint network are (despite the latter’s mounting financial troubles), I’m so taken with the iPhone’s bells and whistles—and especially its brilliant interface—that I’ll tolerate AT&T’s abysmal wireless service. The cute Lotus is on its way back to Sprint, and I’m waiting on my next dropped call…

That’s exactly what our 44th President is. The famous “Clinton wireless service” we got to know so well, and then voted away two or three times — repackaged with large, friendly buttons on a morphing keyboard and “bells and whistles” galore.

A perfect fit for the iDecade. As I wrote back in February…

…we are designed to find ways to contribute as individuals. It matters not if we’re told day after day, hour-to-hour, that we’re loved unconditionally even should we fail to do this. We want to succeed. We want to justify our individual existences.

Notice how every hot luxury item now, the thing you get your significant-other to show how much you love them, has a name that begins with a lowercase “i”. There is deep psychological symbolism involved in this. “i” is a pronoun we use to reference ourselves…as individuals…usually capitalized, but here, curiously, not. It’s as if we have been conditioned to think less of ourselves. Lowercase “i”…as in…”i’m so glad i have this personal music player because i wouldn’t be worth much without it.” Or, “i hope people will think better of me now that i have a phone that everybody else would like to have.”

That little i will take its sweet time finding its way to the Hallway of Regrettable Trends, in the space between the pet rock and the Ouija board…but it’ll get there. I find the deep psychological symbolism fascinating. Without my iDevice i mean very little and i no longer deserve caps, therefore i must not mean very much with it, since i cannot depend on it to keep my phone call in progress when i call someone.

I doubt like hell that Melissa Clouthier has these kinds of ego issues. And she certainly hasn’t become drunk on adoration for our iPresident-Elect, however she may feel about her iPhone.

But his appeal to his iFans seems to me not much different from the appeal this overly-expensive, semi-working iPhone has to its dwindling numbers of iCustomers. I’m envisioning an iDevice pulled out of a box in an attic with twenty years of dust on it — how snazzy will that look, then? I’m recalling how cool and techy a digital watch used to look…the old kind, with ones with the RED numbers.

When people say “oh yeah, that’s from somewhere around the OBAMA administration” will that name sound too much different from the way the name “Carter” sounds right now?

The iPresident…for the iDecade. When we care about how things are packaged, and not about what those things do once we unpack them and plug ’em in. Before we became fed-up with style and hungry for function.

I’m not predicting the future. I’m making an easy call.

Update:
It’s happening already.

I don’t mind the small cap i. It is a hobby of mine to look at certain things from a Darwinian perspective. The evolution of consumer buying has the same “survival of the fittest” flavor that someone with an eye for marketing and production harnesses to do two things: protect its life (consumer demand) and remove its enemies (market share).

The i represents the next level of marketing achievement. That little letter tells the purchaser that they are the master of their (small) domain. The consumer will flock towards any product that makes the user feel more powerful. In a world where loss of control is the default, (and the media encourage this feeling by tapping into everyone’s flight or fight reflex,) selling power is a money-maker. Power vis a vis video games (where you can achieve without personal risk), enjoy music (mixed by you), receive information with filters on or off (internet web sites), watch TV on your terms (you say when, where, how): I’m curious to see where this can go from here.

In the fifties, consumers needed products to streamline life – each product increased leisure exponentially. Now that life is beyond streamlined, leisure gains are minimal. Consumables satisfy a new need: the struggles of daily living aren’t there, and society no longer rewards you when you overcome them. Pseudo-struggle and pseudo-achievement need to be purchased. Becoming an adult has more downside risk and fewer upsides – there’s no shame in being shiftless anymore, and success invites lawsuits. There will eventually come a day when folks will wake up and realize that the power purchased is shallow; a game too easily won gets boring.

I realize you were trying to make a point about Obama; I took your thoughts off topic. Sorry. Maybe Obama’s vagaries during the campaign invited the powerless to feel like this guy was going to give them power – and they bought it. Conservatism needs to sell itself as a more meaningful and deeper achievement of power: the power of oneself, and the comfort in not asking for help, and not being asked.
- wch | 11/21/2008 @ 11:37
It seems to me the only place it can go from here is pure frustration.

The people who have these iThings, it seems to me, are the same people constantly lecturing us to “come together to solve global warming” or come together to do some other such thing. I’ve therefore formed the impression this is a pure contradiction. It is about forming a collective bond with all others, while at the same time regressing into this cocoon filled with libraries of personal tunes. I’m all the more solidified in this impression when I notice the list of desirable features in these iAppliances, seem to have a great deal to do with showing off for others. But the functionality has to do with accumulating a library of items connected to the individual’s personal tastes that only the individual can truly enjoy.

My conclusion is that these people are deeply conflicted with themselves about how to connect to the world around them, and don’t know it.
- mkfreeberg | 11/21/2008 @ 11:43

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iPresidentFriday, November 21st, 2008

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Friday, November 21st, 2008