Filed under: Analysis / Opinion, Cult of Mac
The Street: "Mac Owners Are Snobs"
According to a recent The Street video, they say that Mac users are "snobs." The video, which is based on research by Mindset Media says that Mac owners are more likely:- to be perfectionists
- to use notebooks
- to use teeth whitening products
- to drive station wagons
- to pay for downloaded music
- to go to Starbucks
- care about "green" products and the environment
- to own a hybrid car
- and last but not least ... to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year
[via Insanely Great Mac]
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Reader Comments (Page 4 of 11)
Tim said 2:10PM on 2-17-2008
What ...... Care about the environment and drive a hybrid car makes you a snob ??!!
Well..... Then I hereby anounce myself a snob and I am proud of it !!!!
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Terts said 2:11PM on 2-17-2008
Strange - I am a liberal and own firearms for home defense (but then again, I live in the wild west). I got 5 out of the 9! And I want to own a hybrid vehicle someday. AND, I hate wasting my bucks at Starbucks.
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tofupunk said 2:11PM on 2-17-2008
to be perfectionists (no way)
to use notebooks (yep)
to use teeth whitening products (doesn't everyone?)
to drive station wagons (I have a Beetle)
to pay for downloaded music (yeah)
to go to Starbucks (I HATE Starbucks, Dunn Bros all the way!)
care about "green" products and the environment (well duh, i'm an Envr Sci. Major)
to own a hybrid car (biodiesel, actually.)
and last but not least ... to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year (No, I've only ever bought the iSub)
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Hawke said 2:13PM on 2-17-2008
Green products are a rip off, global warming is unfounded science at this point (but still possible), I own an assault rifle, am a member of the NRA, donated to Ron Paul, drive a German sports car, I pay for downloaded music (at Amazon).
I've owned two ibooks, though I don't right now (hp) and have an iPhone and iPod Classic.
Not sure if i'd ever be consider me a Mac guy, though.
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DJP3DRO said 12:45AM on 2-18-2008
What do I think? I think people who use the catch-all stereotype of being "snobby" to insult Mac users because they use shitty computers are retarded, that's what.
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Troy Banther said 2:20PM on 2-17-2008
Here's my response:
1. To be perfectionists.
No but I must have a high degree of accuracy since my job requires it.
2. To use notebooks.
I own a Mini.
3. To use teeth whitening products.
Is this an issue with PC users? I brush, floss and use mouthwash.
4. To drive station wagons.
A 2000 model Chevy Metro. Paid for and still in great running shape.
5. To pay for downloaded music.
I just listen to music. Why pay for it when it's been paid for and its free from online stations?
6. To go to Starbucks.
We don't have one of those here. Tea and water.
7. To care about "green" products and the environment
to own a hybrid car.
Do vegetables count as green?
8. To buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year.
Sandals.
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Tony said 2:20PM on 2-17-2008
Of course we're snobs. I've never met a Mac owner who wasn't an elitist.
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Holger said 2:20PM on 2-17-2008
Are there any hybrid station wagons?
Guess I'll stick to my 406 Coupe HDI...
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inferno10 said 2:22PM on 2-17-2008
On the contrary...
I wish my GPA were higher...
got me on the notebook point
does toothpaste count as a tooth whitening product?
Station wagon??? blech!!! Station wagons are ugly!
I only buy music if it's good, otherwise I pirate
Doesn't everyone go to Starbucks or some cafe nowadays?
Screw green, my Jeep Wrangler gets about 15 MPG!
Owning hybids? Not until they stop being fugly
I have been using these sneakers for over 5 years...haven't purchased since.
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chris gill said 2:24PM on 2-17-2008
* NOT A perfectionist...pretty far from it
* DON'T HAVE A notebook.
* HAVE USED teeth whitening products MAYBE 3 TIMES
* DON'T drive A station wagon
* HAVE PAID for downloaded music, BUT I "BORROW" A LOT OF MUSIC TOO
* DON'T go to Starbucks UNLESS I HAVE A GIFT CARD
* care about "green" products and the environment...WHAT"S WRONG WITH THAT?
* I WISH I HAD A HYBRID
* I buy 5 pairs of sneakers in 5 YEARS.
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Bob6stringer said 2:27PM on 2-17-2008
Generally I wouldn't be shocked to have the findings be accurate, except for the subjective "snob" conclusion. And the "sneakers" thing, which is just odd. As I see it, most americans are liberal, too, until you get political about it. (Fairness for workers; knowledge that our resources are limited; seeing corporate greed as a major problem, etc.)
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Richard Hinkel said 5:11PM on 2-17-2008
As long as your a snob about the right things (food, computers, green products) it's not so bad. I maintain my own weight by being a food snob!
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Richard said 2:32PM on 2-17-2008
According to Dictionary, Snob is defined as follows:
snob |snäb|
noun
a person with an exaggerated respect for high social position or wealth who seeks to associate with social superiors and dislikes people or activities regarded as lower-class.
• [with adj. ] a person who believes that their tastes in a particular area are superior to those of other people : a musical snob.
DERIVATIVES
snobbery |-bərē| |ˈsnɑb(ə)ri| noun ( pl. -beries)
snobbism |-ˌbizəm| noun
snobby |ˈsnɑbi| adjective ( -bier |ˈsnɑbiər|, -biest |ˈsnɑbi1st|).
ORIGIN late 18th cent. (originally dialect in the sense [cobbler] ): of unknown origin; early senses conveyed a notion of ‘lower status or rank,’ later denoting a person seeking to imitate those of superior social standing or wealth. Folk etymology connects the word with Latin sine nobilitate ‘without nobility’ but the earliest recorded sense has no connection with this.
I most definitely qualify. Most comments here tried to equate snob with something negative; why?
As for the "survey":
I don't wear sneakers except for sports (I own four pairs I have had for > 4 years), I would not be caught dead in a station wagon (I drive a BMW coupe), I am not a liberal *at all* (dislike the bunch), I don't go to starbucks except to help myself with free brown sugar bags, I don't pay for music I download (then again, I never download music).
Politicians need to help raise the level in our society, not help feed people garbage TV content and wasteful noisy misleading democrat/ republican viewpoints.
Long live the greedy good people of Apple and its users.
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Larson said 2:33PM on 2-17-2008
I'm a wicked computer nerd so being snobby is pretty much out of the question.
What kind of notebook? Paper? Yes. A laptop? For now since I use it at school.
Teeth whitening? I brush twice daily that and that's enough to have white teeth.
Station wagon? Nope.
Pay for music?! Haha don't make me laugh.
I don't drink coffee.
Green products? That would be nice.
Hybrid car? Nope.
Five pairs of sneakers? I've had the same pair for 3 years.
Most of those aren't true for me at least and I'm sure for most people. I think people don't like Macs because they're better than most PCs unless if you build your own.
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bobertoq said 2:40PM on 2-17-2008
I don't do any of that! I use a notebook when I am forced to and I pay for my music, but other then that I don't do anything on that list.
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David Emery said 2:40PM on 2-17-2008
Mr Mac User, you stand accused of the following crimes. How do you plead?
to be perfectionists
guilty
to use notebooks
guilty
to use teeth whitening products
not guilty
to drive station wagons
not guilty (I drive a 7 year old pickup bought from a friend when he adopted 2 kids and needed a vehicle that could hold car seats :-)
to pay for downloaded music
guilty, but very infrequently (mostly from http://www.magnatune.com)
to go to Starbucks
guilty (and I feel guilty about it when I fork over the $$ for coffee, but at least I know it's GOOD coffee. See charge #1 above...)
care about "green" products and the environment
guilty, but not obsessively so. I grew up in the multiple-use conservation approach of the '60s and '70s
to own a hybrid car
not guilty
and last but not least ... to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year
not guilty. (Bought my last pair of sneakers maybe 5 years ago...
dave
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Shawn McBee said 2:56PM on 2-17-2008
Without going into specifics, I either do fit or wish to fit most of those points (I don't have a Hybrid YET). I am not, of course, qualified to judge whether or not that makes me a snob, but let's just say that it is something of which I have been accused in the past.
My main point of contention is this: When, in all the history of the world, has owning a station wagon equated to snobbery?!
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Michael said 2:45PM on 2-17-2008
The only piece of silliness there is "use teeth whitening products". Teeth should be, well, teeth-colour not white, and bleaching them isn't good for them. I guess that could count as "snobbery" -- doing something you don't need to do in order to feel one up on everyone else. But it's mostly just silliness and an inability to leave well alone.
I can't see that anything else could really count as "snobbery" at all. Paying for things (No. 5) is known as honesty where I come from.
As for "care about 'green' products and the environment" (No. 7) -- I suppose that could be something of a pose but hardly snobbery.
It's certainly a pose if you're making out you're out to save the Universe. The Universe can take care of itself just fine: the point of not littering and polluting your surroundings is not to "save" the Universe, but so that you (and your children and your children's children) don't have to live in a trash heap. That's not "snobbery" but common sense.
The rest are just preferences. And real snobs probably don't own _any_ sneakers and look down on those who do -- or on those who wear them off a squash court at any rate.
As for me _most_ of these items from _The Street's_ list don't apply; some do.
As for the other question, I'm politically conservative -- at least in the negative sense that I don't believe in ideologies (whether Socialist, Liberal, or anything else) but in the value of tradition, custom, and experience:
http://www.conservativeforum.org/EssaysForm.asp?ID=6102
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Kevin Bailey said 6:52PM on 2-17-2008
But should teeth be coffee-color? Or the color of cigarette smoke?
Big John said 2:52PM on 2-17-2008
Sweeping generalizations about a community always turns out well.
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