March 9th, 2008

The Mac snobbery, arrogance, confidence debate

Posted by Jason D. O'Grady @ 8:30 pm

Categories: Apple, Opinion

Tags: Apple Macintosh, Arrogance, Apple Inc., Desktops, Hardware, Jason D. O'Grady

In August 2007 I posted a piece asking if Mac users were smug and arrogant. Over 4,000 of you voted in the poll at then end of the story with 64 percent stating that Mac users are smug and arrogant. Then in October I asked if Apple, Inc. was arrogant. In that poll over 800 votes were cast with a solid 70 percent stating that Apple was arrogant.
Adding fuel to the fire Mindset Media came out with a study in January 2008 stating the Mac user are more likely (my answers in parentheses):

• to be perfectionists (yes)
• to use notebooks (yes)
• to buy organic food (sometimes)
  
• to use teeth whitening products (Arm & Hammer Advanced White toothpaste, baby!)
• to drive station wagons (never)
• to pay for downloaded music (yes)
• to go to Starbucks (once a month, maybe)
• care about “green” products and the environment (yes)
• to own a hybrid car (no, but I’d like to)
• to buy 5 pairs of sneakers in a year (I just don’t get this one)

Macworld’s Brian Chen asked people outside of the Apple Store in San Francisco if they were snobs and several actually agreed to it (on camera!)

Laura B., commenter 2.2 in my second piece, made an important distinction between “arrogant” and “confident” (emphasis mine):

Confidence is silent, or near so - you know you’re better, and you can quietly proclaim this while still noting your own faults and your competitors positive traits. Arrogance is loud - you think you’re better and you make sure that everyone knows that you think it. People like confidence. It illustrates a secure person (or company in this case) that genuinely believes in their traits/products. People don’t like arrogance. It illustrates the uncontrollable desire to convince others that you or your company is worthwhile to the point of lambasting all others and only focusing on your good qualities without balancing the faults in. It is often perceived as obnoxious and generally deceitful (hiding poor qualities, masking low self-image, etc). So yes, there is something wrong with arrogant.

If you missed the polls last time, weigh in (or just check the vote tally) after the jump…

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