Exhibit 5a | Creative Disobedience

I found a really funny ipod parody video on bOINGbOING and it got me to thinkin. What if the iPods were some sort of mind control device? What if eventually everyone on the planet will have one, and then they’ll flip a switch and we’ll all be turned into drooling brain-dead slaves? I guess that would be cool if “they” were hot alien women with six breasts apiece and “slave” was the cool kind of slave and…um….shut up, you don’t know.

Seriously though, I find it fascinating how many people I see with those signature white headphones. I am envisioning myself twenty years from now talking to some little kid saying “Yeah, back in the day everyone had an iPod, they were the coolest things ever.” And the kid won’t bother answering me because he’ll be listening to music playing from into the 40 terabyte hard drive planted in the back of his skull.

I suppose that my interest in the iPod phenomenon comes from a couple of factors. First, I’ve never been the guy who actually owns the must-have anything. When ever I wanted the cool scooter that all the kids had in grade school, I saved up my pennies and managed to buy it about six months after they were no longer cool. I have a pair of Guess jeans now, but back in 1991? Yeah right. I’ve always been behind the times for trends. I was one of the first people to stop pegging my jeans in ninth grade long before that was cool…although that probably just was because I was too depressed and filled with self-loathing to worry about my appearance any more, but whatever.

The second is that I’ve never been consciously aware of a trend of this magnitude, perhaps because of factor one, and also because those white headphones really put it in your face. You can’t walk five feet in this city without running into someone with the white cords dangling down.

I finally saw my first iPod shuffle last weekend, and I must say that I was pretty impressed. It’s small and pretty and you just feel suave with that thin sliver of plastic in your hand. We’ve all seen small flash drives before, but for some reason that little white stick of gum just exudes the cool. That’s good design for you.

But I wonder if someone over there at Apple is trying to make fools of the iPod shuffle buyers by including that damn lanyard? In an age when we should be having wireless headphones, why did they decide to add all kinds of extra cord dangling around your neck? I’m pretty sure that the designers over there in Cupertino head out to the mall on their days off just to watch people get all tangled up in their Shuffle lanyards. That has got to be the most retarded….

*beeeeeeeep*

…THE IPOD IS GREAT. ACHIEVE HAPPINESS THROUGH IPOD. THE IPOD IS GREAT. ACHIEVE HAPPINESS THROUGH IPOD. THE IPOD…..