Steve Jobs or, The Tweets of the World are a Constant Quantity but of Questionable Quality
Figure 66.1: Steve Jobs wears jeans.
At 7am I awoke. I got straight out of bed and had a hot shower. At about a quarter past the hour, Twitter illuminated me to the fact that Steve Jobs, Apple innovator, had died. Poor Steve Jobs had died.
I tweeted, as one might, about Steve Jobs. Among the plethora of “RIP, Steve Jobs,” tweets, or saccharine 140 character odes to that tune, mine was chalky.
“While I suppose I’m a bit sad for Steve Jobs and his family, I mostly don’t care. My MacBook is great but I paid Apple €1600 for it.”
Steve Jobs made the lives of people who could afford it slightly easier with functional but elegant electronic consumer products. It isn’t charity; it’s business.
Jobs led a company, drove numerous companies, to create profit. By common moral standards this is neither a bad nor a good thing in itself, but the fact that Steve Jobs led the company that developed my laptop does not make my heart beat for him.
Further irked, the more I thought. A minute later I tweeted again.
“Apple were the ‘alternative’ multinational money machine, cooler than Microsoft? Steve Jobs wore jeans and t-shirts instead of suits. Great.”
I used to have a Dell laptop. It was really good. I also had a Sony walkman at one point. I don’t hold any love for the leaders of those companies.
The Sony walkman, one of those old ones that played cassettes, that was my first bit of technology that was my own. I look back more fondly on that than any other electronic product I have ever had.
Many of my generation learned to use computers with Windows products on Hewlett Packard and Dell Computers, as the next may learn on Mac operating systems on Apple Macs.
Bill Gates, the multi-billionaire name most commonly associated with Microsoft and Windows, is not a figure of public idolatry in the same way as the unexpired Jobs was.
An interesting albeit rather obvious comparison is fit to be drawn between Jobs and Gates. Within similar fields, both are very different kinds of innovators, inventers and visionaries. Yet Jobs is the alternative choice, the underdog, undermining the dominance of the big evil, Microsoft.
As my previously half-baked opinions on Jobs found solidity, I tweeted again. It was about half past nine by this time and it was my last shout on the matter.
“Poor Steve Jobs. He made our lives slightly easier with products that we bought from his company for cash money. A true hero.”
In 1987 a charity organisation called the Stephen P Jobs Foundation was started. A little over a year later it folded having done nothing other than employ famous designer Paul Rand to create its logo.
Ten years later, Jobs terminated all of Apple’s corporate philanthropy programs when he rejoined the company. This was because he wanted the company to concentrate on becoming profitable again after a period of decline. These programs did not resurface.
I have no favouritism towards Bill Gates or any business person, but where the veneration of Jobs comes from is beyond my grasp. I don’t wake up every day and thank Adi Dassler for my shoes or Levi Strauss for my jeans, and they were pioneers in their fields.
Neither do I thank Rupert Murdoch for bringing me Premier League soccer every weekend. BSkyB innovate. They bring us Premier League coverage in new ways every week, giving us more access. Sky have directly empowered British football through their coverage, innovative branding and inventive market penetration, indirectly leading to the exponential improvement in quality of these leagues and, by proxy, our enjoyment of them.
Jobs was an innovator, but so is Jonathan Ive who has contributed just as much if not more to what supposedly justifies Jobs’ sanctity now: Apple’s innovation, invention and technological vision or, sleekly designed iPhones that are updated every couple of months rendering what they replace obsolete and the most depreciable consumer good since toilet paper.
I have no bad will whatsoever to Steve Jobs and I take no pleasure in his death. I feel bad for his wife who is, according to many sources, a nice person. I feel bad for his family and those who counted him as a friend.
The painful Twittering of millions of people in mourning over a megalomaniac business man does raise my ire though. Why this particular genius? Why not the others, the ones that aren’t the heads of multinational corporations?
A cult of personality rears its head now. Jobs may have been a genius, but he was also a man who wore denim jeans, turtle neck jumpers and (probably) endearingly tattered converse.
Jobs was his own best marketing tool. The sudden fall in Apple’s share price upon news of his death is as much a testament to that as it is to his capacity for invention.
The design team is still there. The people who developed five generations of iPhone in the space of four years – each shinier than the last – are still at Apple. So don’t worry.
The problem for us is that the same lovely face isn’t there to put the new product in our hands anymore. The ‘alternative’ guy – the lesser evil to Bill gates or some soulless Japanese technology company – is not there to keep us loyal.
But it isn’t Fairtrade iPods and iCoffee that we’ve been filling up on. It has always been the ‘alternative’ value of Apple, the Steve Jobs factor even when we don’t see him.
This tragedy means that now we have this vacancy in our lives, a lack of an intermediary between the product and our money. We’re lamenting it. The thing we associated with “innovation” and “invention,” is gone. And all we have is product, pure product, pure Apple.
And only now do we realise that the thing we worshipped all along, the thing we pay tribute to now, only ever hid our worship of the product, the consumer good that is Apple, in all its ‘alternative’ glory.
Turf
Turf
Sisyphus sat down upon the soft sod,
sinking slightly before sighing lightly,
as he felt the earth consume his hands.
Flushed with the scents of the spring flora,
he cracked worn lips that had not smiled
since time nor turf, and knew,
that as the ground swallowed him,
he could bare the world.
Working Class Chic: Scarf Story
The Green Forest Blues series will have to wait for a while. This is about as close to fashion journalism as I’ll ever get.
Wearing a Scarf
I stood on the ramp outside the arts block in Trinity College, Dublin. A bloke approached me.
“Ah, a football scarf! That’s cool, working class chic.”
And so I was alerted to the fact that my scarf had been assimilated into some sort of alternative fashion culture. My Liverpool scarf was cool. The complete stranger who approached me and commented on my neck apparel was all smiles and, in my eyes, seemed to mean what he said in the nicest way. I couldn’t help but think that it was ridiculous.
“What do you mean, working class chic? What is that?”
I knew perfectly well what working class chic meant. Or rather, I knew that it was some sort of bullshit pretence exuded by a person via their clothes or a false accent or something. So no, I didn’t really know what working class chic was exactly, but I knew enough to get a bit hot under the scarf about it. So, when this person looked at me in some sort of blank amazement, I took the opportunity to go on.
“How shallow a perception is it to see a person wearing a football scarf and then think that it is just a lovely fashion statement? The working classes are ‘in’ now are they? Well that makes me sick. Of all of the things that can be taken from my choice of scarf, you seem to have drawn from the very top layer. What does my love of football and my choice to display that love through my scarf say about me, other than that I might want to put across a ‘cool’ working class vibe?
“In the first instance, I’ll tell you this, being working class is not cool. It’s a slog. It says something that the fashion of the working classes seems to strike you more than their plight. Where do people get off appropriating what they see as some sort of appealing kitsch value in the lower rungs of society and making it into ‘working class chic,’ a style for consumption?
“And, with that in mind, why are working class people seen so stereotypically? Is football just a game for the working classes, or is that only the working classes would invest themselves emotionally in such folly? And, from a middle class perch, it is all just football isn’t it? There’s no distinction made between teams, no? Considering the fact that you are so happy to cast aspersions of class and buy into some sort of stereotype that provides the raw material for this ‘working class chic’ look, why won’t you go any further with it? Maybe my Liverpool scarf says something truthful about my personality? The fact that I support Liverpool so outwardly probably means I venerate tradition, have a genuine working class background – even if I am standing at the entrance to Trinity College’s arts building right now – and that I don’t wish to be assimilated into poxy working class fucking chic?”
Panting, I stepped away and broke my engagement with the now dejected eyes of this stranger. I walked away defiantly with my chin up.
“Here, mate. Hold on a second.” I stopped and turned.
“Sorry. I, you know, didn’t mean to, well –“
“It’s alright, brother. I know. Don’t worry about it.”
With that, I took my leave of him. Or, I would have done, had any of this been true. Well, some of it is true. I’ll start again.
“Ah, a football scarf! That’s cool, working class chic.”
I was a little uncomfortable that my scarf actually meant anything other than that I was cold and supported Liverpool. All the same, the bloke who said it to me seemed very nice, genuine in what I could only assume was a compliment. He smiled and I smiled back, although a little uncomfortably.
“Cheers mate. Come on the ‘Pool, you know!”
That’s basically what happened. I wish I had of a) thought the other stuff at the time and b) been a big enough dickhead to say it.
Figure 13.1 : Robbie Fowler. God. This is related.
Green Forest Blues Part 2
This is the second part of the Green Forest Blues series of children’s stuff. That first sentence sounds quite presumptuous of a readership. Delicious. The first part can be found here: Green Forest Blues Part 1.
4
When winter had passed, spring greeted the animals. They were delighted that they did not have to fear the harsh winds and bitter coldness any longer. They woke up every morning to find the sun shining down from the blue sky and this made most of the animals very happy. However, some animals began to notice what owl had been worried about through the winter. They slowly began to realise that the rain had not come for months and that it was affecting their forest.
At first it was only the frogs that missed the rain. The stream that ran through the forest was their home and they depended upon it more than any of the other animals. As the animals drank from the stream they could see that the water levels were slowly going down. As the days passed the frogs had less and less water to live in. Usually the rain would keep the stream brimming with water but over the previous months the rain had disappeared.
“You shouldn’t drink so much water,” said a little frog to a huge deer one day. “The water is our home and you are drinking more and more of it every day. You take far more than you need. If you drank half of the water that you usually drink, we could live more happily and you would still get all of the water you need.”
“I might drink a lot of water,” replied the deer, “but all of the other animals drink from this stream too. You cannot just blame me little frog.”
“I don’t think that you would be very happy if I left the water and ate all of your grass,” snapped the frog. He was very angry that the deer did not care about the stream and was not taking responsibility for his actions.
“I certainly would not be happy,” answered the deer. “But at the moment there is not very much grass for any of us deer to eat. We don’t really know why but since the winter passed, the grass has not grown as it usually does. In fact the grass has barely grown at all, and where there is grass it is dry and brown.”
Fig 12.1: Unrelated. Basically.
Indeed, while the sun and the blue sky were a pleasant change from the winter weather, the spring had not been as happy as it usually was. Besides the stream and the grass, there were other problems. The flowers were not blooming as brightly as they had the previous spring and the new leaves on the trees were very sparse. The soil itself was turning to dust under the sun and it became so hard that even the moles found it difficult to dig through it. A feeling of unrest spread through the forest. The animals all blamed each other for the difficult conditions. Ed the weasel was the only animal who seemed happy as the conditions became worse and worse for the animals of the forest. He was happy because he knew that this was a perfect opportunity to blame everything on the badgers.
“It is clear what has been happening over the past few months,” he explained with a smile. “The forest has fallen into a terrible state. The water is draining away, the grass isn’t growing, the trees are still bare and the ground is turning to dust. This is all Barney’s fault. He and the other badgers were trusted with the responsibility of looking after the forest and look at what has happened.”
From his perch in the branches of the highest trees, Owl could see that this wasn’t really true. The badgers had been the animals that had looked after the forest for a long time, but it was not their fault that the rain hadn’t come. They couldn’t control the weather after all. And it was not their fault that some animals had taken far more from the stream than they needed to. And how were they supposed to make sure that the animals had shared the food available properly? It was impossible. Nevertheless, Ed was delighted to see that his words were finally being heard. Slowly but surely, some of the animals even began to believe that the poor condition of the forest might really have been the fault of Barney and the other badgers.
5
By the time spring turned into summer, the water had nearly dried up. The stream was now more like a little muddy trickle of water. The frogs were in a desperate situation as they could barely live without their beloved water. All of the animals were thirsty and there were disagreements about who should benefit from what was left of the water. These arguments were never solved properly and the bigger animals often took the water without asking anybody. The entire forest was dry and all of the animals could see that they were in serious trouble. Despite the troubles, Ed continued to use the drought to turn people against Barney.
“Look at Barney and the badgers,” he would shout. “We trusted them to take care of our forest but they have failed. We must not trust them any longer!”
Of course, Barney was terribly sad. He noticed the dirty looks that the other animals gave him and he knew that most of the animals believed Ed. It was not his fault that the rain had not come and there is no way that he could fix the problems of the forest.
“I don’t know what to do,” he told his children when they asked what was happening. “There are no answers and no solutions. I cannot control the rain and I cannot control what the other animals think.”
As the summer went on and the sun became hotter and hotter in the sky the animals began to lose their tempers. They all blamed Barney for letting the forest dry up. There was no water and there was no grass. There were no flowers and there were no leaves on the trees. There were no nuts or seeds or insects left. It was a desperate situation as the animals became thirstier and hungrier.
“Maybe we should make Barney leave,” whispered a mole to a mouse at the bottom of a tree one day. “Ed said that if Barney wasn’t here things might get better.”
“That sounds like a good idea,” replied the mouse quietly. “I’m so hungry and thirsty and Ed told me that if Barney wasn’t here the rain would come. But if Barney left then who would look after the forest?”
“Ed of course,” the mole said. “He can make sure that the forest goes back to the way it used to be. He has always said that he could do a better job than Barney.”
And that was how Barney eventually fell into the shadows. As the days went by, more and more animals ignored him. He basically disappeared. Sometimes Owl would see him around the edges of the forest in the shadows but he could not mix with the other animals anymore. They listened to Ed instead who said that even though times were difficult, the stream would return. The grass and the flowers and the trees would live and grow again as soon as the rain came he said.
The animals now trusted him and they believed that he could help the forest. All they asked was when the rain would come.
“Soon,” was the only answer Ed and the weasels ever gave to those who lived in the forest. All that the animals of the forest could do was wait and hope that they would soon live in a peaceful and happy forest again with plenty of food and water.
In the highest branches of the tress, Owl knew that Ed was enjoying his new power. Ed loved how the other animals listened to him and respected him. He could also see that it was now the weasels who were taking advantage of the last resources of the forest. They drank the very last of the water and hid the last of the food for themselves. Owl believed that sooner or later the rain would come, but he knew that Ed would have nothing to do with it.
No, it isn’t my fault. Since when were we all economists?
- As long as there is chocolate on the shelf, somebody is liable to eat it. As long as there is cash on the go, somebody is liable to take it.
Internationally, the emergence of the incredibly easy-to-use word, ’Bailout,’ now a term of everyday parlance among everyday people, has seen the common man become an economist of extreme convictions. On a national level, we have the delightfully chewable acronym, ‘NAMA.’ Couple that gem with general group terms like ‘the bankers’ and ‘the developers,’ there has been a lot for the coffee/smoke break economist to spit about over the last year or so. People who once talked about film and music that they scarcely understood now speak of financial policy.
With buzz words and hate figures holstered and ready for action in an instant, it is easy to forget the very systems we live within. For all that we’re discussing NAMA, bankers and governments, big, venerable old words like ‘capitalism’ and ‘socialism’ are forgotten. Of course, within systems that are quite comfortable for and accommodating to those who might have influence in such discussions, it is hardly likely that the broad cultures of greed that are encouraged by spectacle orientated capitalism will be opened up to a public tribunal. While we are outraged at individuals and rightly demand the execution of their characters, Ivor Callely and ‘the bankers’ most recently, investigations of the systems that foster greed culture are not called for.
Figure 6.1: MIddle Class BASTARDS!
One thing that is not acknowledged out loud is that bank bailouts and NAMA are capitalist stopgaps. These measures, while seemingly necessary within the current climate, save certain failing elements of systems preferred by the dominant hierarchy, capitalist systems that allow the accumulation of massive wealth for that hierarchy. That capability for the accumulation of wealth (which generally requires the loss of wealth by another who may or may not be partaking in the fight that is greed culture) proportionately filters down through the class system with obvious (are they obvious? Do people still remember that Ireland has a working class?) disadvantages for those at the bottom of the economic ladder. To be blunt, very few commentators seem to admit that bailing out financial institutions and the creation of the National Assets Management Agency are socialist answers to unpleasant capitalist problems. Maybe that is because economic commentators are of the middle classes and generally favour capitalist systems that benefit their capability for the accumulation of wealth. Socialism is an opportunity cost for the dominant hierarchy. But, to be fair, imagine Barack “Jesus” Obama admitted such a thing publicly, that socialism, of all things, was an answer? Imagine he told the adoring American public that socialist solutions had to save their beloved capitalism?
“Darlin’, did President Obama just say the ‘S’ word?”
“No honey, em, he said, um… Social List. It’s a list of his friends.”
“I knew it. He ain’t no Commie! *Insert generic Deep South phrase here*”
The very capitalist systems that are so precious to so many are only actually beneficial to those in the ascendancy on the financial food chain and, being one and the same, those who influence the lower rungs of that chain. However, that system can only succeed, and by success I mean facilitating wider benefits for the world at large, if everyone participating is 100% morally sound. And nobody is, or not many are anyway. Rather, we’re greedy, or, in capitalist speak, financially ambitious.
The Banker, the guy who ripped off his customers, is a greedy man. Obviously, there’s no doubt about it. And it’s okay to call him greedy flat-out because he’s The Banker. He sneaks into your house at night to steal your hard-earned money and on the way out he rolls up all your socks inside out, and we all know that banker sounds like…
Figure 6.2: The Bankers have fallen flat on their arses! Ha!
But there are other greedy men who aren’t getting it in the neck, which is understandable, because some of them are the unwitting victims here. The average person, who ambitiously/greedily took out a mortgage on a house that he could only afford if everything went perfectly or better for him over the next twenty to twenty-five years, has now lost his house. Some may highlight stupidity as a potential quality of this synecdochical man but, it must be said, greed and stupidity are not mutually exclusive. So maybe he is greedy and stupid? And, shockingly, capitalist systems failed this man. But we’re all greedy, so is capitalism wrong?
And it is a bit close to the bone, isn’t it? Because there are plenty of us in this Joe the Plumber position, or with friends and family struggling with the same problems. It can’t even be said by those with power. If a politician hurts your feelings you won’t vote for them. Even If Mr. Obama says at some point that it was, perhaps, a little bit your fault, pointing down the lens of a camera towards an unsuspecting international audience, previous chants of “YES WE CAN,” would quickly mutate into the far less catchy and unfortunately long-winded, “We hate Obama, whatever happened to that other guy? He wasn’t that bad, was he? I had a job back then.”
So laissez-faire economic policies and free-to-exploit-others capitalism can’t work, not necessarily because it is systematically flawed, but because we are systematically flawed. Or, rather, capitalism is essentially flawed because those who partake in it are undoubtedly flawed. We all want to be in a better position than we are now. We all want a nicer car, a bigger house, luxury toilet roll or a Thai mail-order bride.
Figure 6.3: If it weren't for those bloody BANKERS, You could have had a Thai wife.
But of course, it is the fault of the bankers, isn’t it? And the government? Yes, it is their fault. If there was any justice, the bankers that have actively swindled honest people out of their money would all be put in prison to rot. They should, at the very least, apologise, shouldn’t they? And, one would think, the government should be taking some responsibility for poor economic controls and an inability to deal with crises. Why aren’t they saying sorry either? But, if we honestly expect this capitalist system to succeed, then we have to look at ourselves too as, after all, the collective controls the flow of cash in every transaction. But can capitalism succeed? No, but it could be a little more fair.
As long as the responsibility for our recent economic hardship is left in the lap of those bankers and developers, and while it remains the charge of that government to simply ‘fix’ economic problems, the average bloke won’t really have learned anything at all. It may be mostly their fault, but until we trade in our amateur economic analysis for some introspective honesty, the blame will always lie somewhere else and very little is likely to change.
