The Posters For This New Apple Ad Campaign Are Sending The Wrong Message
On my commute home last night on the NYC Subway(which broke down on three separate occasions mind you) I came across some giant posters on the wall depicting various people starting at their mac screen. Next to each image was the slogan for Apple’s new ad campaign: “Behind The Mac.” I guess they released some video advertisements too using the same slogan which explain who these people are and how they use their mac to “make something wonderful,” but the posters on their own do not tell that story. Here are the stories these posters tell when plastered on the wall of the subway with zero context. Be warned, things get dark.
Meet Richard. Age 55. After some horrendous investments he has found himself in serious debt. His wife and daughter have no idea, however, in three weeks they will. That is when he will have to tell little Susie she needs to drop out of her fancy private university and move back home as he can no longer afford the payments. She has such a close group of friends at college. This will DEVASTATE her. His wife will have to cancel her pilates classes and start working full-time so the family can make ends meet. She will despise Richard for the rest of her life and blame him for all her problems. Richard spends all day at work staring at his macbook screen watching his bank accounts plummet further and further into the red. His boss has noticed a sharp drop in his productivity and plans on laying him off at the end of the quarter. #behindthemac
Meet Victor. Three years ago he immigrated to America from Nigeria to pursue a PHD in physics at a University in rural Minnesota. Despite now having access to opportunities he never thought would be possible, he has never been unhappier. He misses his mother and father, his misses his siblings, his misses the sounds and smells of his homeland. Unaccustomed to the harsh mid-western Winters, he spends most of his time cooped up in his tiny studio apartment browsing OKCupid for hours hoping to make a human connection that will help heal his crippling homesickness. So far he has only encountered heartless 50 year old divorcées who are only interested in using him for sex. He will keep searching but he is starting to lose faith. #behindthemac
I think this is Richard from the first pic but this poster tells a different story. After Richard’s daughter and wife go to bed, he sneaks down into the basement, sets his browser to incognito mode, and watches hours and hours of young Korean girls binge-eat on camera, otherwise known as Mukbang (yes this is a real phenomena)
Every time the cam girl eats another three bowls of noodles, he sends her $100. Over the years he has spent a total of $15,000 in this manner. That was money that would have one day gone towards his daughter’s wedding. Not anymore. #behindthemac
Grimes. 30 years old. Canadian musician and visual artist. As a girl she dreamed of marrying a tortured artist type like Kurt Cobain. Then Elon Musk came into the picture. He wasn’t her type but he was a FUCKING BILLIONAIRE. She jumped eagerly into a relationship. The first few months were a fairy tale. He used his Tesla slush fund to build her a state of the art electronic music studio equipped with a toilet capable of giving her two orgasms within 10 minutes. It had a carbon footprint of zero. At the Met Gala they split a tab of LSD and Elon confessed he wants to marry her but won’t propose until his SpaceX technology improves so he can do it…IN SPACE. Siiiick. However, after 6 months, she is having second thoughts. She worries that Elon may only love her because he thinks her edginess helps hide how much of a huge nerd he is. She spends hours each day sitting at her computer reading Trent Blogs about how Elon is full of shit. She worries that Trent might be right. OMG did Elon just try to make the story of the Thai kids stuck in a cave all about himself? What an asshole. And what about proposing to her in space? How are they going to raise their kids on mars like he promised her when he can’t even get them to space so he can propose! She considers calling off the relationship but is afraid of Musk’s response. He is so ill-tempered and controlling these days. Instead of taking action, she decides to spend another three hours reading Elon’s Twitter mentions and retweeting the meanest ones from her burner account. #behindthemac
After writing this blog Donnie feels pretty depressed. He needs to spend less time #behindthemac. Maybe he should go beat off. That will cheer him up. Can he risk doing it in the office bathroom though? Some people have a very good nose for semen. Not worth it. He decides to beat off in the Chipotle bathroom down the street instead. Do Chipotle’s in NYC have public bathrooms? He has no idea. It is very hard to think with the rundown going on behind him.