How the “Get a Mac” Commercials Personified Vibes
The Mac vs PC distinction was clear, but where did it originate?
Apple's "Get a Mac" campaign (2006-2009) won awards and was a breakthrough for Apple. It personified a difference between what seemed like two visions of personal computing. John Hodgman, the PC, was smart and practical, but frumpy. Justin Long, the Mac, was composed and confident.
The biased subtext: Mac is cool, PC is not.
The stereotypes were obvious, reductive, and reinforced schoolyard dynamics. Yet, they are also a real part of our culture that we can’t dismiss. We know these people. We ARE these people. We just don’t have productive ways to talk about and learn from these differences and similarities.
The Mac vs PC dynamic is much deeper than an ad campaign. The photo below is of Steve Jobs and Bill Gates in 1991, at Steve’s house.
The differences are as clear as the commercials. They are/were two different people with two different vibes. Unlike a commercial, this dichotomy is real.
Jason Sperling was a comedy writer who worked on the Get a Mac ads. In this podcast (with transcript) he talks about seeing this reality in hindsight:
It’s just so funny to me looking back at it and seeing some of those early pictures of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs and just saying, “Oh my God!” They were puppets for the two of them to have these conversations, and we were just the instigators. We were a mouthpiece for Steve to say everything he’s always wanted to say to Bill Gates.
Both Gates and Jobs have had an immense impact on popular culture. They both achieved incredible success and revolutionized personal computing. Both were incredibly competitive and sometimes abrasive. George, Lange, who took the photo above, described the scene:
They were whispering the most competitive craziness to each other while smiling at me. Competitive. Crazy tough. “You will never beat me at anything,” Bill Gates said under his breath to Jobs. Then he adjusted it a bit, “You may tie me, but you will never beat me.”
Yet they are/were very different people, with distinct personalities, perspectives, motivations, and approaches. The businesses and products they created were imbued with these differences, differences that ended up in Apple’s TV commercials and the computer I’m using right now.
To me, vibes are a way to explore these powerful differences between us. I don’t think Bill Gates’s nerdiness is controversial; it could be one of the factors that made him the richest man in the world. Jobs’ success was just as impressive, but it came from a different place and with different outcomes.
What is it, deep down, that made these approaches so different? What was unique about each founder that produced such distinctly different companies and products? Why are we the way we are?
These are the kinds of questions driving this project. What do you think?
So much of who we become is a product of how we were raised...I wonder how that plays in? Both men are (were) absolutely brilliant at what they do (did), but they came at it from very different angles. Just goes to show there is more than one path to success!
Mentors also played a big part in my life on this front. Makes me wonder about their mentors’ vibes.