Hi friends,
This week's post is on a somewhat timely topic, the weird iPad commercial that everyone hated. It was not enough for me to just go "yuck," I had to find some postmodernist theory about it.
Crush, the triumph of the simulacra: What's so upsetting about the iPad ad?
In the iPad "Crush!" video, objects used for artistic creation are crushed by a hydraulic press, along with books, records, video games, and toys. The last item to be crushed is a yellow ball with a face. Its eyes tragicomically bulge before popping out along with a splurt of paint as the hydraulic press closes. The press lifts again and reveals an iPad, with no sign of the crushed objects remaining.
A lot of people hated the commercial, hated it so much that Apple apologized for the video within a few days and decided not to run it as a commercial. As one of the haters, I was surprised by how visceral my feelings were, so I started thinking about it, and then, like any normal person, I picked up my collection of books on semiotics to try to make sense of it all.
Thanks for reading and see you on the internet!
AK