Iceberg Lettuce Is Clearly The Superior Salad Green

Just imagine the following conversation actually happening around a hundred some-odd years ago:

Painter #1: Pablo, you are a (expletive deleted) idiot. I can't believe you consider yourself a creative professional using that poor excuse for a paintbrush. It's all style and no substance, and you can't even get a whole lot of paint for that brush.

Painter #2: Vince, what the hell is the matter with you? It is your paintbrush that truly sucks, you conformist, apologist stooge. Just because everyone else uses that kind of paintbrush doesn't mean it's the best. Why don't you go slice your ear off or something, and let's talk when you see the light and start using the kind of brush I like.

If the preceding sounds ridiculous, why can't a lot of people make the same leap and consider that the partisan platform rhetoric they spew sounds just as preposterous? Some examples for your consideration:

1) At a shop I used to work at, we were pitching another company for some CD ROM production business. After we won the account, the client later admitted that she ignored all the demos we showed her initially and decided to give us the business because she saw that someone in our lab was working on a Mac, and therefore we, by extension, were creative.

2) When a small, Mac-only print shop was acquired by another firm, the IT director of the purchasing firm pulled a Darth Vader to the shop's Lando Calrissian and forced a change over to Windows. He did so because he had heard somewhere that Macs and Windows couldn't share data at all, and besides, he had never used a Mac, so no one else would be allowed to either. This despite the fact that the shop had never needed IT help before, much of their workflow couldn't even be done on Windows, and they were supposed to remain an independent entity even after the acquisition. Every employee left except the founder, who legally couldn't under the terms of the acquisition.

3) A friend of mine's (former) husband basically forced her to use an iMac, despite her preference for Windows. She's a writer, and was pretty much only using e-mail and Office, for heaven's sake, but the guy told her that she had no business calling anything she wrote creative if she wasn't willing to write it on a Mac.

4) I've received my share of flame mail from opinions I've expressed in this space, so I picked one that was clean enough to print. With apologies to Charlie White, with whom I shared these encouraging words, here is one response I got from an obviously unbiased reader after he/she took offense to my dumping on OS 9:

"I have been using the Mac since my college days any everyone who has complained about the stability of the OS has created their own problems! Ignorance and the need to point a finger at someone other than yourself is the problem NOT Steve Jobs or Apple. Go back to your PEECEE friends and rot in hell with Charlie White! You DO NOT belong on a web site like Creative Mac. Have a Nice Day!"

Well, at least I got a polite sign-off. Let's go through the thought process on that last one, shall we?

• I've never had a problem with my Mac.
• You have, so you must be an idiot, or just are seeking to undermine my cause with your subversive anti-Mac ideas.
• Steve Jobs and Apple are perfect entities.
• You must be eliminated.
• Get out of my face.

Is the fact that this particular individual is pouring so much hatred and intolerance into something as stupid as an OPERATING SYSTEM just the least bit disturbing to anyone else besides me? It's only a tool, an extension of the user, and it's so silly because it's SUBJECTIVE. As I alluded to before, how silly is it to think of Picasso and Van Gogh cursing each other out about the brand of paintbrush the other used? Some people use Windows not because they want to, but because it's cheaper or because there is a lot of commodity hardware available. And others use Windows because that's just what they have at work. Some use Macs because they aren't comfortable with anything else. Others use Macs because they plain and simple love the Mac OS. Some use Linux because they don't want to support Microsoft. Who cares who uses what or why they use it? I say use whatever's best for you. The only thing that matters is the quality of the work that is produced with whatever choice you make.

Charlie White, if I may invoke his name again, calls these extreme OS devotees "quasi-religious." And he's right, at least conceptually. The word "religious" in that context probably unfairly categorizes religion as being something uniformly bad; I would liken the type of person we're dealing with to a religious fanatic. We don't need to look back any further than a few months to realize that every religion has its share of fanatics, but that doesn't mean that every follower of that religion thinks similarly or in any way supports the radical element that claims to represent the whole. Lots of people are passionate about their Macs, passionate about Steve Jobs' leadership, passionate about the kind of creativity the Mac platform affords them. On the flip side, even though it's kind of hard to believe, there are those that are passionate about Bill Gates and all things Microsoft as well. And we know that Linux folks are passionate about their OS of choice too. But there are a small number on each side of the OS debate whose passion turns into a need to discredit, deride and insult someone who may not think exactly the same way as they do, and that's where we have problems.

At the risk of being flamed harder than I have ever been flamed before, I'm going to make some comparisons here. Granted, the following are based on my complete inability to make the mental leap on any level to say, "You're not like me, so therefore I am superior to you," or even "You're not like me, so you don't deserve to live," so if you happen to be one of those folks who can make that leap, please tell me why I'm wrong. Here goes: when you tell someone who doesn't like the same OS you do to "rot in hell," to me that kind of thinking is along the same lines as those who claim they were divinely told to beat women for having the audacity to show their faces in public. When you insult your spouse because she prefers to use a computer that is different than what you like, I see a thought process disturbingly akin to those who boast that it is their religious duty to firebomb abortion clinics or murder the doctors that perform those procedures. Please don't get me wrong; I'm not trying to directly compare OS extremists to murderers and terrorists, because the former's weapon of choice seems to be nothing more than harsh language. What I am trying to say is that I simply don't understand the thought process that shapes the views of either, and it is that pattern of thought, and not the actions, that seem similar to me. Even the first two examples I listed earlier, which are more or less tame by comparison to the second two, are still based in ignorance, bias and, dare I say, bigotry. I'm pretty sure that the creative community as a whole is a hell of a lot better than that, and that the majority of this OS rhetoric is a lot of squawking by folks who like to stir up the proverbial poopie storm from the anonymous safety of their internet connection. I really hope the fanaticism doesn't go any farther than that bunch of Linux faithful changing a Windows XP billboard in the UK from "Suddenly, everything clicks" to "Suddenly, everything sucks." I'd hate to think of it progressing to something like a Mac cult deciding to wipe Redmond, Washington off the map because they thought Steve Jobs put some sort of hidden message in Mac OS X.

So, as this is the time of year to do such things, I'm asking for a collective resolution from the creative community. I would love it if everyone resolved to just let it go. Some people prefer Macs, some prefer Windows, and some people prefer none of the above. Let it go. It's just a computer. Let it go. Someone may not like the same OS you do, and they (perish the thought) may even say so. Let it go. Someone may actually like the same OS you do, but have the nerve to offer up criticism of it. Let it go. It's OK to be passionate about your computer, but please recognize and accept the fact that others feel just as passionately about theirs. Because if some folks can't even allow other people to use a different operating system without being ostracized, I shudder to think what might happen when the argument turns to a subject of actual importance.

Happy New Year, everyone. That goes even for you Windows people too.

Filed under: Opinion on January 4th, 2002

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