iDunno, Maybe

As of yesterday I am a man without an iPod. Come February I will be a cell phone user without a country…I mean a company. (Though, really, how far are we from a world in which cell phone companies are countries? 50 years? 100 years? There’s a better chance we’ll have discontinued cell phones than that corporations won’t have national status. Eke! Depressing.) The point is, I’ve never been more susceptible to the ubiquitous iPhone advertorial onslaught.

The most frightening thing about iPhones is their ability to turn any owner into a word-of-mouth salesman. This is either because the iPhone is an outstanding product that makes life infinitely easier or because it controls minds. Or both, no mutual exclusivity there. The thing obviously makes life easier, but it also gives off a real 1960′s sci-fi vibe wherein eventually some cast-off naysayer scientist will discover that iPhones are actually alien transmitters powering some distant Mothership off of stolen human thoughts.

A lot of my thoughts are worthless, but they’re still mine and I don’t want them stolen. There’s sentimental attachment there. Even if the device doesn’t steal them from you, it deprives you of at least a couple. IPhone users, I’ve watched you piss away your sense of direction; tip-calculating skill; ability to recognize the weather while outdoors. I’ve watched the mom-n-pop shops of your mind close for business when the iPhone information megastore moves to town. In short, I’ve watched you willingly get dumber. And yet, for the first time, I’m open to hearing why the iPhone is a smart purchase. I don’t say the above things to be confrontational, those are my preconceived notions on the subject. As a “salesman,” your first job is challenge my epistemology.

When I think about corporations as companies I want to move to a faraway place like the bottom of the ocean. I hate the machine, hate everything it represents, but every once in a while I’ll equivocate and enjoy its output. If the iPhone is so great, I’m willing to hear it now. But don’t tell me why YOU love your iPhone, tell me why I will. Keeping in mind I live in Los Angeles where the weather never changes and I can calculate a tip.

Keep your mitts of my thoughts, aliens and salesmen!

My name is Ben and I blogged this.