iWhat?

I might be one of the only people I know, certainly among those I know who are heavily into electronics, who has never owned an apple product.

I’ve never had a Mac, an iPod, an iPhone or any of those other fancy little gimmicky things. And occasionally I stop to wonder why this is the case. Certainly it’s not for lack of effort on the part of Apple. Their iPod commercials have always been hip and trendy, aspects I try to aspire to, but they’ve never swayed me to shell out any of my reasonably hard-earned dough to buy one. Their most recent Mac computer commercials (the ones that portray PCs as being clumsy,  awkward and best suited to geeky number-crunchers and the like) whereas Macs are slick and modern machines capable of handling real tasks performed by real people.

Well holy crap, I’m real people. Why don’t I have one?

Obviously, the first answer to this is that marketing will only go so far. The best comercials in the world still won’t sway someone to spend money if they don’t want to, and I’ve never particularly wanted to. But word of mouth is another major factor and if you’ve spent any time speaking to a Mac user about Mac computers, you’ll generally be struck by the overwhelmingly cult-ish following that the systems seem to garner among users. These people aren’t all idiots. If most of them are saying good things then it’s probably safe to assume that the machines are generally quite good.

Let’s look at Windows PCs now. I can’t think of a conversation I’ve ever had with anyone who has owned something with Windows on it where at least one of us hasn’t complained about Windows? I mock Bill Gates on a regular basis and routinely blame him for all the woes I suffer, computer related or not.

So why do I still use Windows? Hell, last night I crashed my computer so hard I almost had to reformat the whole thing. Vista hasn’t been a smooth ride, and I’m not expecting much from Windows 7. I have reasonably fond memories of Windows XP and look upon Windows 95 with some sort of hysterical nostalgia. Ah. Those were the days.

So, what does that mean? Does that mean the only good memories I have of Windows is an OS that stopped being modern over a decade ago? Oh god? What’s wrong with me? Why do I keep putting myself through this? What could possibly posses me to be so stupid?

I know the answer, of course.

Anti-trendiness. Yeah, that’s right. I’m intentionally subjecting myself to a less than top-of-the-line consumer experience because I’m unwilling to become one of the pod people. Or iPod people, if you will. Apples slew of hipsexytrendy adds makes me feel like, because I’ve never gotten on the bandwagon, I’m an idiot for having missed out up until now. Of course, I know I’m not an idiot. I’m not exactly the brightest person but I know enough to be able to work a frikkin Mac if I have to.

But I don’t want to. Why? Because iRebel. and because iDon’tWanna.