Stop Paying Attention To Me - All I Want Is An iPhone
I stood on Melbourne's busiest pedestrian mall for 6 hours on Thursday night to get an iPhone 4. This in itself isn't a big issue. Many of the people in the line are my friends and it's quite nice to catch up with your fellow nerd who is also waiting for an iPhone 4. So a line itself, even if it is out in the cold, doesn't phase me. Trust me, I've lined up longer for stupider things (The Sydney Apple Store opening anyone?).
However, when shit like this goes on:
I become irritated, short tempered and placed into a general state of "I want to kill you with the rustiest, sharpest and biggest object available".
For a solid 6 hours, whilst trying to mind my own business, standing outside on the street for the iPhone 4, I was bombarded with constant bullshit, hype and what is the definition of noise pollution. Out on Bourke Street in Melbourne, the Telstra store and Optus store both had booming DJ's, loud doof doof music (which would have pissed me off even if it was music I enjoyed, I kinda like doof doof music), and good looking sales staff that probably have no idea why we're out there and are probably making fun of us behind our backs, constantly running up and down the line trying to "jazz up" the crowd and handing out useless trinkets.
It was even worse in Sydney, where the poor schmucks had some Masterchef cook-off thrown upon them (Telstra), shoved into a nightclub against their will (Vodafone) and a full blown concert by a pop singer (Optus).
When you look at the type of person who goes to the effort to line up for an iPhone 4, for 6 or more hours, who do you see? Geeks, nerds, dorks and lamers. That's not an insult, I am all of those things. As I've said many times, you are my people, I enjoy congregating with you loveable dorks because I am one and feel comfortable around such beings, as we have a common interest and a common background.
When you look at the type of people who run the stores and set up these "events" who is it? PR people who are the total opposite - extroverts vs. introverts and their ideas of what constitutes an event varies significantly.
For our entire lives, us nerds have gone out of our way to avoid attention. Wether it be at school when the popular kids laughed at us for having the wrong type of shoes, or when at work when everyone goes out for drinks after a hard day in the office, when all we want to do is go home and read. We've become socially tuned to shun attention as all attention brings is a spotlight on our personality that the extroverts just don't understand. They aren't being cruel (well most of the time, sometimes they are), they just don't get it.
When you have all this bullshit surrounding a made up event - as it isn't an event, it's just some dorks giving a series of massive companies their hard earned money for a gadget they love - it makes the core customer - the customer who lines up 6 hours for a phone and signs up with ease, because we understand all the contracts better than the sales team - feel uncomfortable, alienated and just plain pissed off.
I still don't understand why the telcos put so much effort in to these pre-launch events. Who is seriously deciding to purchase the phone from a certain telco based off what sort of D-grade entertainment is placed in front of them? I am outside your store in line. You can stop convincing me to buy from you. Just shut up and give me the phone in the smoothest, most orderly fashion.
We're just there for the phone. All I want to do is line up, wait for the phone, get in the store and leave the store with my object of desire with minimal fuss. No parties, no concerts, no singing, no bright lights and hoopla, no cheering wankers. Just the phone, then home.
