The scenes I witnessed at the opening of the new Apple store in London's Covent Garden were more like an evangelical prayer meeting than a chance to buy a phone or a laptop.
The strangeness began a couple of hours before the doors opened to the public. Inside the store, glassy-eyed staff were whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, jumping up and down, clapping and shouting.
Apple staff encouraged the hysteria at the new store opening in Covent Garden
When the doors finally opened, they hysterically "high-fived" and cheered hundreds of delirious customers flooding in through the doors for hours on end.
And what did those customers - some who'd travelled from as far away as the US and China and slept on the pavement for the privilege - find when they finally got inside?
Well, all the same stuff as in the Apple store half a mile away on Regent Street. No special offers, no free gifts (a few t-shirts were handed out), no exclusive products. Now that's devotion.
I searched high and low for answers. The Bishop of Buckingham - who reads his Bible on an iPad - explained to me the similarities between Apple and a religion.
And when a team of neuroscientists with an MRI scanner took a look inside the brain of an Apple fanatic it seemed the bishop was on to something.
The results suggested that Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith.
FUCKING SHEEP.
The strangeness began a couple of hours before the doors opened to the public. Inside the store, glassy-eyed staff were whipped up into a frenzy of excitement, jumping up and down, clapping and shouting.
Apple staff encouraged the hysteria at the new store opening in Covent GardenWhen the doors finally opened, they hysterically "high-fived" and cheered hundreds of delirious customers flooding in through the doors for hours on end.
And what did those customers - some who'd travelled from as far away as the US and China and slept on the pavement for the privilege - find when they finally got inside?
Well, all the same stuff as in the Apple store half a mile away on Regent Street. No special offers, no free gifts (a few t-shirts were handed out), no exclusive products. Now that's devotion.
I searched high and low for answers. The Bishop of Buckingham - who reads his Bible on an iPad - explained to me the similarities between Apple and a religion.
And when a team of neuroscientists with an MRI scanner took a look inside the brain of an Apple fanatic it seemed the bishop was on to something.
The results suggested that Apple was actually stimulating the same parts of the brain as religious imagery does in people of faith.
I'm trying to think of a material good that would inspire that level of devotion in me.....ummmmmmm...nope. And I'm one of those shallow, femme-y bitches who likes makeup and shoes.
ReplyDelete(Huh. Now I'm thinking about the gendering of consumption and its relationship to "seriousness".)
Anti-death drugs maybe?
ReplyDeleteI'm trying to think of a material good that would inspire that level of devotion in me.....ummmmmmm...nope
ReplyDeleteHow about a self-cleaning waffle iron?
Consumption Editor Thinks:
ReplyDeleteA self-cleaning iWaffle iron? Or an iIron, maybe.
Sorry, didn't mean to start any cogitatin'. I know it's early.
All they ask is that you believe
ReplyDelete