[Prestidigitweeze]

My theory is this: impassioned consumer brand wars reflect people's feelings of social and political powerlessness. Same thing with people who make a point of hating celebrities.

Because we have no real standing or power, and nothing else (apparently) to represent our interests, we ally ourselves with this or that brand as chavs do football teams.

The allure of putting down Apple repeatedly is this:

The assumption that Apple users confuse their purchases with the maverick individuality which is promised traditionally by Apple advertising. To put Apple down is to put down the consumer team and corporate celebrity associated with it.

However, belonging to one consumer group, pointing to another group and characterizing the second group as delusional is also delusional, as shown by that very act.

The mistake is in assuming that everyone who buys an Apple product does so for the same arbitrary reasons, and that one's own reasons for buying a different product are automatically better.

Another common brand war tactic is to attack a given product for fun and then laugh at people who are serious enough to respond to one's attacks. Apple attracts that sort of troll simply because its ads promise pseudo-individuality, giving the troll the chance to repeat endlessly that Apple's promise is a lie and that those who fall for it are sheep.

The irony of putting down Apple users is that, in privileging your own brand choices as less credulous than those of the diehard Apple customer, you are doing the exact thing you claim to criticize -- confusing mere brand choices with evidence of individual superiority. You are demonstrating that you, too, baa-baa-baa when the screen is dark and the wallet is full.

To associate humility or wisdom with Android users and arrogance or credulousness with Apple users is itself an admission that one has been hypnotized by marketing.

Having to repeat that association over and over year after year in forum after forum reminds me of the words of Freud:

"A neurotic repeats the same behavior without remembering the cause."

It's been over a decade since the first iPod was introduced. At this point, I don't really care which team wins an Apple vs. Android debate.

What I do wish is that the same compulsive arguments weren't always being made, and that people might occasionally talk about something else.

It's strange to leave a room and come back years later, only to find that the same people are still in that room saying the same things and engaged in the same fight. How can it be fun to argue for one team over another in a public forum if the argument itself never changes? And how active can anyone be who is self-defined as a passive consumer?