Taki Magazine

In the comments to my post “All Your Thoughts Are Belong To Us,” “MS” (an appropriate pseudonym) remarked, “I’ll never understand why liberals like Apple so much.  As if it’s the computer of the anti-establishment.”  To which I replied, jokingly, that “I agree.  Clearly, the Mac is the computer for intelligent conservatives.”  (You can tell that it’s at least partly a joke, because both President Bush and Rush Limbaugh are among the “conservative” Mac users.  On the other hand, Chronicles has long been produced on a Mac, and for five years now, our office has been entirely PC free.)

But if, as “Jet” correctly pointed out in the same comment thread, “I dont think its possible to define who uses what OS by political ideologies,” there does seem to be something of a correlation between political viewpoints and the use (or rather, reuse or mashup) of Apple’s TV commercials.  The great “1984” ad, produced by Ridley Scott to introduce the original Macintosh, is an obvious target, and there are many versions out there with Hillary Clinton or Rudy Giuliani in the role of Big Brother.  Not surprisingly, almost all end with an endorsement of Ron Paul.

But that’s low-hanging fruit.  Somewhat more interesting is this parody of one of Apple’s “Switch” ads:

Or this (low-quality but funny) version of Apple’s more recent “I’m a Mac” ads:

And then, of course, there’s Apple’s second most famous ad campaign (behind “I’m a Mac”): the “Think Different” ads.  They turn out to be perfect vehicles for promoting Ron Paul:

And once you’ve watched all of those, here’s a little bonus, Access Hollywood-style, featuring musician John Mayer (who frequently performs at Apple keynotes and product introductions) lecturing Justin Long, who plays the Mac in the “I’m a Mac” ads, on the constitutionalism of Ron Paul.  Note Long’s very strange response of “Paul Wolfowitz” every time that Mayer mentions Ron Paul’s name:

All of which makes me wonder: Why haven’t the supporters of any candidate used a Microsoft commercial as the basis of a viral campaign ad?