February 24, 1955 – October 5, 2011
This is a large post made up of the smaller posts I made around the intertubes regarding Jobs’ death and its impact on me.
First, G+:
“Yah. A man I didn’t know died. And it feels like he was family. Steve Jobs’ vision absolutely changed my life. Mac changed my life. I wouldn’t have found my inner geek or learned graphics or even met Nick.
A man I didn’t know died today. And I’m pretty damn upset.
Thank you Steve Jobs, for your brilliant gifts to the world. And for your influence on my life.
RIP Steve Jobs
-Angela
Mac geek since 1995”
And the G+ follow up:
“I know many people don’t understand the reaction to Jobs’ death. It seems weird that the death of a CEO would matter. I didn’t expect it to matter as much to me as it did. I was surprised to have a strong reaction, actually. But when I started enumerating the things that I have today that I would NOT have had w/out Apple in my life the list got pretty personal. Lessee: my career, my life path, my HUSBAND. All these things are pretty much directly connected to that little Happy Mac. That is NOT an exaggeration.
So, for all the snarky bitches who’ve been talking about my “crazy cultist” goings on: FUCK YOU. You know who you are and YES I noticed. You’ve dropped (more) in my estimation of your character. Expect to see much less of me on various media and in person. If you had any passion in your sad lives, you’d understand. But, OH, nevermind, Hoarders is on. /snark/”
That was pointedly at the FB bitches who thought I wouldn’t see the thread. I did.
For the record, I think that putting flowers at Apple stores is a bit odd, but people react in different ways. They did that for Princess Diana and I didn’t get it then, either. But I do understand all the tributes and thank-yous going around the web.
It’s not the hardware. Or the stores. Or even the man himself. It’s the brave forget-the-past attitude. It’s the crazy innovation. It’s the ideals that Apple represents that move us.
It’s that little Happy Mac that changed the whole course of my life. THAT is what we’re talking about.
Some people are too shallow to get it. That is abundantly clear. But I tell you, moronic comments like “He was not a nice man.” really hack me off because a) oh, did you KNOW him? b) can you cite examples? c) NO ONE is talking about him PERSONALLY, duh.
I didn’t know Jobs. I’m not sad for him personally, I’m sad because now Apple will just be another tech company run by a boring old dude (and good gods, Tim Cook is boring and dry and corporate. ::shudder::). Once Jobs’ ideas/products have all played out, there will be no more. That light of innovation is gone. He most certainly is the Edison of our time. The bitchy people that won’t acknowledge that are actually the ones who are playing the Mac vs PC card, not the people that appreciate Jobs for what he did for the tech industry. The Mac vs PC debate is irrelevant. As are the bitchy posts. (And last time I checked, Apple is worth more than MS, so you can suck on that.)
The bottom line is that we are not Apple “cultists”. We are people who have honestly been affected by that Little Happy Mac. We are people who have no problem paying more for hardware in order to get the elegant OS. And most PC users have an iPhone in their pocket, so YOU are Apple “cultists”, too.
How do you like us now? ;)