The cult of Mac

Some people take their Mac fetish to a spiritual level – and it seems with good reason. There’s probably a conspiracy theory book in this. Apple has styled itself as a religion. Maybe.
Here are some potential “religious elements” identified in an interesting study, covered in this article from the Atlantic, entitled: “How the iPhone Became Divine: New Media, Religion and the Intertextual Circulation of Meaning“, it followed an earlier study on “The Cult of Macintosh.”

1. a creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin and emergence of the Apple Mac as a transformative moment;
2. a hero myth presenting the Mac and its founder Jobs as saving its users from the corporate domination of the PC world;
3. a satanic myth that presents Bill Gates as the enemy of Mac loyalists;
4. and, finally, a resurrection myth of Jobs returning to save the failing company…”

The scholar responsible for that article summed up the Apple experience:

“When you’re buying into Mac, you’re buying into an ideology. You’re buying into a community.”

It’s funny. In a day and age where the church is trying to figure out how to learn from Apple, Apple seems to have flipped the metaphorical apple cart – in basing its business practices on the church.