Artie MacStrawman is not just a river in Egypt
Cleversimon torches Charlie Brooker’s strawman so the Macalope doesn’t have to, passing the savings on to you. Or something.
Charlie Brooker’s thesis is “I hate Windows, but I hate strawmen Mac evangelists more, so I’m going to marinate in my misery just to stick it to these imaginary fanboys. I’m unhappy and unproductive, and I’m going to stay unhappy and unproductive—that’ll show ‘em.”
UPDATE: Commenters believe the horny one just doesn’t “get” Brooker and that it’s all a satire and not to be taken literally. It’s obvious that it’s over the top and meant to be funny, but it certainly seems like the basic point is still the same no matter how much patented British sarcasm — that no one in the colonies can is allowed to understand because we’re peasants who only understand the twaddle that comes from the plebian “writers” who have so badly butchered their language — there is.
(That, by the way, is just plain old American sarcasm. Which comes with a side of fries.)
Well, maybe the Macalope’s wrong. But he believes Cleversimon is Canadian. What’s his excuse?
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[…] (Via the Macalope.) […]
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[…] (Via the Macalope.) […]
Charlie Brooker operates on so many levels of irony it is impossible to tell how he really feels. I wouldn’t take it personally.
The Booker rant was hilarious like George Costanza self-destructing. I had several friends who felt exactly the same way for years. For YEARS! Two of them (a married couple) just broke down after a virus melted their Vista PC and bought their first Mac. After one week, they are in heaven. Booker’s only mistake is to compare Macophiles to evangelists. We don’t want your money, we just want the world to be a less stressed place, hence use a Mac to maintain a calm and happy outlook on life.
I just read Booker’s article, and I saw the anti-Mac-fanboy aspect as pretty tongue-in-cheek; the article is way more scathing of all things Windows.
Every Mac user I’ve ever met chose a Mac for productivity, ease of use, security, etc. – in short, value. And that makes the “Mac evangelist” meme a really annoying one, I know. But I think Booker is mostly having fun with that meme, with the real goal of blasting the other side.
I mean, how can you hate an article that says this: “Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it’s there, and there’s nothing you can do about it.” Nicely put.
So guys like that won’t buy Macs because of guys like me? Ok, enjoy the crap!
In years of brilliant skewering, Macalope has finally got one wrong:-)
Charlie Brooker is just enjoying a bit of comedy here. It’s a funny article.
I love at his opening line….
but seriously some of us a little over zealous in telling other to buy apple products. At least I’m guilty 🙂
Not to be taken literally: Brooker is rarely serious about anything… this is his standard, amusing, self-loathing schtick! (He is English, in case you didn’t know. If you’re able to, check out his new BBC tv show Gameswipe. )
He’s British. You should see the stuff he does on the BBC like “Screenwipe” He should get a bye just because of the brilliant lexicon he adds.
[The Windows 7 party campaign is] so terrible, it induces an entirely new emotion: a blend of vertigo, disgust, anger and embarrassment which I like to call “shitasmia”. It not only creates this emotion: it defines it. It’s the most shitasmic cultural artefact in history.
I can so see that as a poster: Windows 7 adverts. They’re Shitasmic!
Woah there Macalope. I’ll give you a pass as you seem to be unaware of Charlie Brooker’s sarcastic, angry complaining media persona but that was a classic bit of Brooker. Cleversimon is missing the joke too it seems.
See also http://www.channel4.com/programmes/you-have-been-watching which he presents and also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Brooker
I didn’t realize Americans found it so difficult to appreciate a nice bit of dry British humor.
If you don’t get it, don’t show yourself up by passing comment. Macalope can be vaguely amusing at times. Brooker is regularly laugh-out-loud piss-your-pants funny.
+1 for “Don’t take anything he writes at face value.”
To add further context, it’s rumoured that Brooker actually has an iPhone[citation needed].
Mactards are like Jehovah’s Witnesses.
How about this, Macalope. He means what he says- the gist about Mac users being smug, not the bit about wanting us to die. And he’s got a point.
And I honestly don’t think the British still think of the Americans as being capable of unsophisticated humour (for want of a better description). Quite the opposite, in fact.
@JASON Funny. You used outlook, calm and happy in the same sentence.
As another Limey Mac Fanboi – I have to agree. It’s self-deprecating, british misery humour.
While I’m not denying that he probably does actually wallow in his misery while hating his PC it’s not quite as it seems. He’s an old-school PC gamer who is supposed to hate macs – but, then, macs (and their shiny convenience) is all too European (if not German) and not quite ‘British’ enough. We’re supposed to like a user experience that matches our weather.
Either way – we British geeks love our Charlie Brooker kinda like you Americans love your Jon Stewart (or like you Americans love our Stephen Fry).
So lay off! 🙂 x
As a French (stop booing), i really enjoy this storm in a tea cup. As i-don’t-know-who said; “Americans, you should be forever grateful to France—without her, you would all be speaking English”. Thanks Macalope!
auteur mcStrawHomme skewered by an article 90% of which was about how shitasmic Windows is. And yet MacMacadam tars him with the bruschetta as… balls, run out of snotty british condescension (and I am UKnicorn)
Article was funny.
you need to get your keming sorted out. Arial baldershite
That was one very funny article! Ah the irony, the delicious irony!
I’m sorry but you guys really are just embarrassing yourselves – you, cleversimon and Gruber all seem to think you “get” what Brooker’s schtick is but that there’s still some serious matter here about Mac users. You really better not bother looking for his previous rants about Apple and Mac users then…
Seriusly, get over yourselves. Yes it is sarcastic and yes it is a point he’s taken a long way to make us laugh, but yes he does basically hold that Mac users are zealots. You boys seem to think you’ve never met any of these zealots.
I’m afraid to say that in at least one case (Gruber) you ARE those zealots. I’m a Mac user and I’ve seen people that behave in the way he describes. Maybe not QUITE as bad as that but hey, it’s a JOKE.
Lighten the hell up you fools, and don’t attempt to critique something you really don’t understand no matter how much you complain that you do. It was a very funny piece and apart from anything you’re just embarrassing yourselves by taking it so seriously!
Americans… *sigh* No sense of humour, even though they brought us Larry David…
“But he believes Cleversimon is Canadian. What’s his excuse?”
He probably lives in the 406 area.
Cheers
Nothing to do with nationality, more to do with familiarity with Brooker and his writing.
There IS no basic point; he’s just trying to provoke people. Successfully, evidently.
@PENKAPP, thank you for noticing the purposeful oxymoron in that sentence.
I’m English and I didn’t get the impression that it was intended as sarcastic humour. Perhaps if I were more familiar with his earlier work I might have done (does he usually write similar pieces as humour on a variety of other topics?), but standing on its own the humour really doesn’t come across.
At the end of the day, the written word is normally pretty dry, so it’s hard to do sarcasm right, especially in a long piece like that.
To me, the column was like a SNL skit, and only FOX tries to produce rebuttals of SNL material.