Sexist mac adJean titles her post on this My computer is just like me (not): The new Mac ads are even worse than the old ones – so not only are the Windows and Mac users rather white men of two rather clichÈed stereotypes, they compare the home videos they edited. And guess what, they’re women. The Mac user’s is pretty and well-dressed and described as “professional”, whereas the Windows user’s is a man dressed as a frumpy woman. This makes me want to switch to, oh I don’t know, Linux, I suppose. If you were in any doubt that men are the default and women the aberration (or, on occasion, the creation or possession of men as in this ad), you might want to note how men’s naked bodies are “human anatomy” while women’s naked bodies are “female anatomy” (via Martin).

6 thoughts on “mac ads all about reinforcing stereotypes?

  1. b¯rge

    I’ve recently switched to Linux, and it was much easier than I thought. I’m dualbooting Ubuntu LInux and Windows XP, but I’ve never felt the need to boot Windows again after installing Ubuntu some months ago! If you, or anyone, would like help on switching I’m writing about at over at Jeg, en Linux-bruker? (Norwegian).

  2. Elinesca

    Actually… it’s all a joke… the woman is a very famous model, Giselle Bundchen (or something like that).
    I thought it was funny.. I wouldn’t if I didn’t know who the woman was, though:-)

  3. Jill

    I don’t know that it really helps that the woman is a supermodel… Ah well.

  4. […] Update: In response to a bit of discussion going on about the ads reinforcing stereotypes, mainly started by Jill, who kindly linked to my post here: there is that, sure – the Mac is one sort of vaguely urban, effortlessly cool American guy, the PC is another, deeply unattractive, old economy nerd sort of American guy. Yes, theyíre ístereotypesí, and so is the supermodel in the ëbetterí ad. […]

  5. H&T

    A colleague of mine reckons that the ‘get a mac’ ads ‘jumped the shark’ some time ago. But I totally agree the tenor is unfortunate, even allowing for tongues that might (possibly) be deeply embedded in cheeks. At bigqueer.com (where one commentator has suggested that in addition to being sexist, the ads are ‘transhating’ is made) they’re doing a little survey FYI.

  6. Jill

    If you don’t get the problem with the Mac ads, PLEASE go read Jean’s new post that dissects them more. And thanks, H&T, for that link – yeah, clearly not very complimentary to trans…

Leave A Comment

Recommended Posts

Triple book talk: Watch James Dobson, Jussi Parikka and me discuss our 2023 books

Thanks to everyone who came to the triple book talk of three recent books on machine vision by James Dobson, Jussi Parikka and me, and thanks for excellent questions. Several people have emailed to asked if we recorded it, and yes we did! Here you go! James and Jussi’s books […]

Image on a black background of a human hand holding a graphic showing the word AI with a blue circuit board pattern inside surrounded by blurred blue and yellow dots and a concentric circular blue design.
AI and algorithmic culture Machine Vision

Four visual registers for imaginaries of machine vision

I’m thrilled to announce another publication from our European Research Council (ERC)-funded research project on Machine Vision: Gabriele de Setaand Anya Shchetvina‘s paper analysing how Chinese AI companies visually present machine vision technologies. They find that the Chinese machine vision imaginary is global, blue and competitive.  De Seta, Gabriele, and Anya Shchetvina. “Imagining Machine […]

Do people flock to talks about ChatGPT because they are scared?

Whenever I give talks about ChatGPT and LLMs, whether to ninth graders, businesses or journalists, I meet people who are hungry for information, who really want to understand this new technology. I’ve interpreted this as interest and a need to understand – but yesterday, Eirik Solheim said that every time […]