The Religion of Apple

The undying devotion of fanboys to Apple is nothing new, but researchers have reframed Apple's relationship to its consumers/fans into something else: religion.

There are scholars who study Apple's consumers as religious devotees. Consumer behavior specialists Russell Belk of York University and Gulnur Tumbat of San Francisco State, even put together a framework for assessing Apple's mystical mythology. The company
was built on four key myths, they argued.

Here are the four narratives, as summarized by media scholar Texas A&M's Heidi Campbell, who distilled their work for her May paper "How the iPhone became divine":

- a creation myth highlighting the counter-cultural origin and emergence of the Apple Mac as a transformative moment;

- a hero myth presenting the Mac and its founder Jobs as saving its users from the corporate domination of the PC world;

- a satanic myth that presents Bill Gates as the enemy of Mac loyalists;

- and, finally, a resurrection myth of Jobs returning to save the failing company...

Link - via kottke


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Funny, have been saying this to people around me since the i-phone went airborne.

Gauldar's point being my main argument also.

Same as in real religion, you have fanatics... we must not upset them or they'll turn terrorists ;P

Thanks neato for bringing this to our attention!
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well, these people who did this must be working for windows, the whole world is obsessed with Apple and for a very good reason, its simply because they are VERY good with what they do
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did i miss the part of religion where the "jesus" figure leaves and when he returns, the devil helps bankroll his religion's transformation?

I love "studies." I guess for these people, it beats working for a living.
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Oh, please! The exact same thing can be said about any popular thing. I don't see anything here about Star Wars or Star Trek, which tend to brainwash people in a much more extreme way than any technology company. Or how about the cult of cars? Ever walk in on a discussion between a Ford fan and a Chevy fan? Last time I checked there weren't window decals of Calvin urinating on the Microsoft or Apple logos. I'm pretty disappointed that Neatorama would stoop to Apple bashing just to drive eyes to it's site. Leave that crap to the trolls at the technology sites like Gizmodo.
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