Jeremy can attest that I make a lot of snide comments about Apple’s Get a Mac campaign. Don’t get me wrong, they’re clever and funny and if they didn’t get under my skin I would enjoy them completely.

But, they do get under my skin. I think it is because Apple is so blatantly manipulating playground politics. By that I mean the kind of politics that make entire groups of kids shun one child because they have “cooties.” I understand that it is genius advertising. If the whole world perceives that Apple is cool and Microsoft is dorky, they will want to buy an Apple so that they can join the popular crowd in making fun of anyone not in the crowd. Is there anything more socially titillating than the sensation of being in the clan? Nobody wants to be the fat, middle-aged, defensive, uptight, glasses-wearing Piggy. We know what happens to Piggy.

I know that this sort of advertising isn’t new and that it isn’t unique to Apple. I know it is effective and it isn’t going away. It bugs me all the same. And though I prefer the new, much less haughty-spirited Microsoft commercials which are a direct response to Apple’s campaign, I would rather not boil my identity down to a piece of turn-of-the-millennium soon to be technological scrap. I am not a PC. I am not a Mac. I am not an animal. (I had to.) I am Daryl Ridgely. . . and I endorse this message. (Again, had to.)

_{Full disclosure: This message was created on a Mac.}