box of Jack

You know what is the best thing coming out of Apple right now? It’s not the iPod.

It’s not the newly bumped-up MacBooks; it’s not the mighty MacBook Pro; not the iPod shuffle; not the 8-core Mac Pro and not that little teevee box they done have. It’s not even Steve Jobs and his turtleneck sweaters.

It’s those freaking “I’m a Mac” ads.

Now personally, I like to think I’m one of the Mac-faithful. I love these ads because they poke gentle fun at the world of PCs. They project the vibe that, “Hey, Macs can co-exist with PCs. You can buy one, it will do the things you want to do and some of the headaches go away.” Of course, some people interpret this as condescending and I guess if I were a PC-lover, I too would feel like everyone was talking down to me and making fun of my intelligence.

Choose a Vista!

It is a massive credit to John Hodgman and umm… other guy that these characters are insanely popular. They’re simple, they’re approachable and it’s almost like a relaxing break out of the sensationalist and deceitful landscape of TV. Kudos to Apple for injecting some occasional spark into commercial breaks.

I have a bone to pick about all these spoofs of the ads, though. I have not found one good parody. They are all unimaginative, fail at being parodies and fail at being funny or convincing. Most of them manage to copy the music and the stark white backgrounds. But they capture none of the imagination in the dialog. The two people on stage aren’t friends or casual acquaintances like neighbors at a BBQ, they are just one-dimensional symbols of competing products.

Fat guy: “Hi, I’m a PS3.” Hot chick: “Hi, I’m a Wii.” Very clever. They might as well just put up a big banner that says “PS3 = Prison rape. Wii = Not prison rape.”

And some of the fan-made parodies that stick up for the humble PC. Ideas along the line of, “Haha Macs are for gays/college kids/snooty art types.” Or “Hello, I’m a big mean high-end PC. BITES HEAD OFF MAC GUY. HALO IS AWESOMES!!!”

Forget it, guys. Stop making these awful spoofs. They’re not even parodies, they’re just a basic rip-off of Apple’s ad campaign. You’re just taking some of the devices that these ads use and re-purposing them for your own agenda. There’s no witty back-reference, no poking holes in the logic of the ads. It is about as original and inspired as lolcats, except that your actors are not cute felines but raving fanboys. Your ad is like every 40-year-old man that said, “I could join the Spice Girls. I’ll be ‘Old Spice’. AHAHAHA!”

If you want to make a little youtube clip about how Product X is better than it’s competitor, then sit down and think up some original ideas. If you want to make fun of Apple’s ads then watch them and take a good long look at how they tick. Watch how Mac and PC spar against each other figure out where the absurdities lie. Just stop picking your nose and start thinking instead of plagiarizing.