They're in a minority and they're suffering for their beliefs. "It was an analogy that occurred to them before," he said. It also imparts the community with a quasi-religious character. The "cult of Mac" is a set of beliefs about Apple and the Mac that make sense of the world of technology. Religion, Belk said, is a belief structure that helps people make sense of the world. "This religion is based on an origin myth for Apple Computer, heroic and savior legends surrounding its co-founder and current CEO Steve Jobs, the devout faith of its follower congregation, their belief in the righteousness of the Macintosh, the existence of one or more Satanic opponents, Mac believers proselytizing and converting nonbelievers, and the hope among cult members that salvation can be achieved by transcending corporate capitalism." "The Mac and its fans constitute the equivalent of a religion," Belk wrote in the video's abstract. It was shown in public for the first time in October at a marketing conference in Atlanta. To make the system work you need to interpret the program yourself: A long way from the baroque community of revelers, the user is closed within the loneliness of his own inner torment."īelk has been studying the Mac community for a couple of years, and has produced a video monograph called The Cult of Macintosh based on a series of interviews with Mac users. It demands "difficult personal decisions, imposes a subtle hermeneutics upon the user, and takes for granted the idea that not all can reach salvation. The Windows PC, on the other hand, is Protestant. It is "cheerful, friendly, conciliatory, it tells the faithful how they must proceed step by step to reach - if not the Kingdom of Heaven - the moment in which their document is printed." The Mac is Catholic, he wrote in his back-page column of the Italian news weekly, Espresso, in September 1994. View Slideshow Umberto Eco, the Italian semiologist, once famously compared Macs and PCs to the two main branches of the Christian faith: Catholics and Protestants. Belk argues Mac religion is based on myths surrounding the orgin of Apple, the savior status of Steve Jobs, and the devout faith of the Mac congregation. The Mac community is the equivalent of a new-age religion, according to Russell Belk, a consumer behaviorist.
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