Seems It was minor, but there were some pannels on the walls and also it was on several promotional lmages, which makes it even weirder because why would you do so?
I find it really hard to connect with the outrage surrounding this. On a basic level, like is the stuff thatās being crushed really that amazing? Itās mostly creative tools, right? Not unique artistic works but just mass-produced products like theyāre selling. Stuff like this gets smashed up for ads, tv shows and movies all the time. It really doesnāt seem like that big of a deal to me (or at least thatās how I felt until I saw they had some CRTs under there - how could they?). I feel like the compelling narrative has overtaken the reality of this ad.
But what really annoys me is there are so many better reasons to hate Apple as a company. I looked up āApple human rights abusesā and found this article from just a couple weeks before the ad. There is so much blood on the hands of these tech companies. Wars waged in their names, children working as slaves. Everyone knows it, to the point where itās barely even news. But if they crush some inanimate objects, theyāve gone too far this time.
well, I hope those arenāt the takeaways you got from my few words about it. Iām sure those takes are out there, but I canāt say Iāve seen anyone upset because physical objects were destroyed for a commercial (film production on the scale of an Apple commercial is often crazy wasteful). Seems to me that it was the symbolism of the commercial ā the complete lack of reading the room in terms of this very weird, very difficult moment in time weāre in regarding dehumanizing C-suite/tech bro behavior vs. human creativity and making a living at it ā that struck a nerve with people, and that nerve also happened to be extremely raw around when the ad dropped (it coincidentally paired with the latest Xbox studio shutdowns, which felt like a breaking point for a lot of people). Thatās why I was annoyed enough to mention it, at least, as was every take I saw
As for human rights abuses, yeah, I havenāt seen anyone implying that the commercial is in any way more meaningful. I think people are very aware of that ā Iāve probably seen more reporting on the cobalt mining in DR Congo this year than I have in the past few years combined. Iād have rather seen that level of press and outrage toward human rights abuses rather than a commercial, too. But people can still point out that a small thing sucks ā doesnāt make the big things suck any less
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Ron Gilbert is making a Zelda and Jake Solomon is making a gilmore girls type game
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WONāT SOMEBODY STOP THESE MAD MEN!
In all honesty this is fucking rad.
Sorry, honestly I just had some stuff to say about it, looked to see if it had come up on the forum and then hit reply! 
I can understand the point about symbolism and people with creative careers feeling very vulnerable right now, but I still really struggle to see that symbolism. The message is super clear, a bunch of tools are being squished into an object which performs the functions of those tools. When I hear people talk about the ad, I feel like there is some different version where a bunch of creative works were under there instead. These tools are all in large part produced in machines by factories, so if anything itās crushing the opposite of what people are implying in my opinion.
I do take this point, and I knew it felt like sort of whataboutery as I was saying itā¦ but itās less so when the whataboutery is talking about the same entity. Part of propaganda is to move the conversation away from inconvenient topics. If I search for āapple controversyā right now, I get article after article talking about specifically this issue and very few of them mention Appleās other awful activities. Stuff like this should be a great opportunity to get people talking about perennial issues with these huge companies imo, but instead it functionally drowns them out.
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Idk itās less the replacement of tools so much as synthesizing tools into one object that flattens the creativity that physical tools allow with software. Obviously you can make unique interesting things on an iPad but as someone who values physical tools and objects to spark my own creativity the literal flattening into one fancy computer sucks imo. Itās more a general cultural sucking point for me, how most movies and tv shows all look and do the same things, how shareholder value is placed above all else, Canva and corporate Memphis style taking off, increased AI proliferation, etc etc.
And yeah sweatshops are bad and replacing physical tools you could source locally or from an artisan or long running manufacturer with a device built around suicide nets is bad.
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Thanks, appreciate the perspective here. The more I ruminate on this, the more I think itās just a vector for me to express broader discontent with the society at large - as you say, general cultural sucking points and shareholder value being placed above all else.
The ad does suck, and Apple sucks. I have this suspicion that this debacle will be profitable for them somehow, though. Like theyāll workshop some new, sensitive ad and everyone will clap them on the back and move on.
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Two of these things are actually in the article, one is a lie. Can you guess which?
-9/11 gets mentioned.
-Feudās essay āBeyond the Pleasure Principleā is referenced by name.
-The word ācycleā appears in this short article four times.
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To be clear, I think this early access review is actually pretty good overall. I just thought the post-COVID angle was kinda funny.
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A gilmore-like sounds a lot like a one block rpg to me.
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They should make a Gilmore Girls yakuza.
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yeah, I get that, I do it less here, but pretty much every real-life friend session starts with us expressing some extremely broad discontent about the whole-assed state of things at length. like, even watching the ad, the shitty tone-deaf ālet them eat tabletā symbolism just compounds into all of Appleās far worse practices (almostā¦compressing it all into a homogenized product). I donāt have a ton of hope and I know what you mean about diverting from more meaningful issues, but I have a modicum of hope that louder outcry and more pushback about anything on the whole spectrum of the dehumanization thatās become rampant in corporate culture is at least somewhat healthy
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Update: someone talked to the studio and said they didnāt use AI.
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Hallelujah now everyone should go forth and purchase Indika
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Taking a break from media has been great. Started paying attention again like yesterday.
The apple commercial outrage is exactly the sort of thing I donāt want to give any thought to. Just dumb.
Was Bethesda closed? If so how soon is too soon to start making fun of Bethesda? Sorry to the humans but yeah
Came here to see if thereās any game news relevant to me. Apparently not. Iāll check the fan translation threads and try to comb some retro roundup style podcast things I guess.
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Not quite. Arkane Austin and Tango Gameworks were shut down because gamepassās inherent vice is that it messes with sales figures and makes all āday 1 gamepassā games devalued in the eyes of investors. Tango suffered from their own success by actually shipping a critically and commercially successful game and following orders to port to other systems, making them easier for Xbox to dissolve while theyāre in the pitch phase.
If I were Obsidian or Ninja theory, I would try to never release the games theyāre working on, because nothing they do will protect them from the same fate!
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Thatās a shame to hear [that Bethesda was not closed]
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Damn gamers, do you really need more things to be enraged about
This is my feeling coming back from two month gamer news break
Must be Exhausting
Ironically, being morebusy has me dreaming once again of doing my own retro news / gaming podcast or yt or whatever, because Iām really not finding any that comprehensively tell me what Iām looking for or with a tone I am comfortable withā¦ though thereās a 99% chance Iāll still never do it.
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