Animated iPod enthusiasm

December 8, 2004 3:00 PM

How many consumer products are so loved that users create elaborate animations to showcase their enthusiasm? Only one that I can think of. (He has apparently had problems with having enough bandwidth to host the video, so you'll need to follow the "On to the iPod mini ad" link on his page to get to the mirror du jour.) I'm behind the iPod curve here, because despite being a gadget guy, a music guy, and a (kind-of) internet and computer guy, I didn't get one until a few months ago. I must say it has changed my outlook on life, especially when driving, because instead of constantly cursing while switching radio stations every 10 seconds, I now carry my own radio station with me, and it never plays any songs I hate. (my first post, please be gentle!)
posted by centerpunch (51 comments total)

more post, less filler. You could put everything after "I'm behind the iPod curve here..." in the first comment.
posted by puke & cry at 3:15 PM on December 8, 2004

What a waste of talent.
posted by smackfu at 3:15 PM on December 8, 2004

Good first post, centerpunch. The movie is very well done. But I think his primary purpose may not have been driven by any obsession other than the need to get a job. "Now all I need is for one of those fancy-pants motion graphics houses to offer me a job." This is his online resume.
posted by JParker at 3:18 PM on December 8, 2004

You could only think of one? What about the Kikkoman animations?
The OS Girls cartoons? Or the corporate mascot furry porn?

*throws keyboard at monitor in disgust
posted by Smart Dalek at 3:18 PM on December 8, 2004

I hope it gets him a job a Frutopia
posted by joelf at 3:19 PM on December 8, 2004

I didn't realize that Apple did stealth advertising.
posted by eyeballkid at 3:19 PM on December 8, 2004

Yes, iPods are neat. Carrying 4000 songs in your pocket makes you way cooler than that guy with the cd player. Yes. I don't listen to the radio anymore because I have an iPod. Yes.

Some people like them enough to make movies about them. There are many, many products that people appreciate enough to spend their free time making fan-art about. Some people have even created Star Wars costume websites, some have even redecorated their houses to look like Star Trek and I'm sure the iceberg is about 99.99999% still under water.
posted by fenriq at 3:25 PM on December 8, 2004

As mentioned above...OS-tan.
posted by bobo123 at 3:29 PM on December 8, 2004

Only one, perhaps two.
posted by phirleh at 3:31 PM on December 8, 2004

Sorry Smart Dalek, I missed your reference.
posted by phirleh at 3:33 PM on December 8, 2004

Yeah, it doesn't look like he made this solely from a labour of love. :p I had a project similar to that in a recent broadcast design class, seen here. Who knows, maybe this guy even goes to school with me.

Self link only because its so eeriely similar to what I just finished.
posted by still at 3:33 PM on December 8, 2004

I've got to admit, that was pretty tupping awesome. Apple would probably never have the segment where the iPod disassembles itself, though. I think they'd prefer people to believe that there's just fairy dust and gumdrops inside.

At least, that's what I'd like to believe.
posted by buriednexttoyou at 3:44 PM on December 8, 2004

so much for being gentle...
posted by johnny vagabond at 3:53 PM on December 8, 2004

This is us being gentle. Believe me.
posted by mek at 3:56 PM on December 8, 2004

Homemade iPod Flash enthusiasm with explanation in English.
posted by turbodog at 3:58 PM on December 8, 2004

it's not really the pepsi blue, it's not really the crap subject, it's that there are people out there who can, apparently with a straight face, say things like "this product has changed my outlook on life". dude, doesn't that socket on the back of your skull hurt?
posted by quonsar at 4:42 PM on December 8, 2004

quonsar, you don't understand - Back before the iPod, people actually had to CARRY AROUND A CONTAINER OF COMPACT DISCS if they wanted to hear their own music. Sometimes it weighed UP TO A POUND OR MORE.
posted by mr_crash_davis at 4:50 PM on December 8, 2004

I'm going to create a bumper sticker that says "I am defined by consumer goods".
posted by mildred-pitt at 4:52 PM on December 8, 2004

Then sell them of course...
posted by mildred-pitt at 4:53 PM on December 8, 2004

back in the day, we carried around the entire Grand Funk catalog on 8-track tape. big, heavy, mechanical 8-tracks. 7 miles. both ways. uphill. in winter.
posted by quonsar at 4:54 PM on December 8, 2004 [1 favorite]

...it's that there are people out there who can, apparently with a straight face, say things like "this product has changed my outlook on life". dude, doesn't that socket on the back of your skull hurt? posted by quonsar

Well, sorry, but maybe (in fact, quite probably) I'm older than you, and after driving 30 minutes each way to work for about 25 years, yes, sucky music on the radio pisses me off. And 6, or 12, or 50 cds in the car doesn't cut it, and satellite radio doesn't cut it (they play songs I hate, too), and believe me, it doesn't matter if you drive a clunker, an Evo, or a 911, that daily commute still gets old, old, old. And yes, having MY seven thousand songs on random play in my car does make me happy, socket in my head or not. And happy is better.
posted by centerpunch at 5:04 PM on December 8, 2004

i rest my case, son.
posted by quonsar at 5:06 PM on December 8, 2004

Probably you should call me dad.
posted by centerpunch at 5:09 PM on December 8, 2004

I have nothing against ipod users being tools, I must say.
posted by angry modem at 5:09 PM on December 8, 2004

Whilst we are piling on, can I say mp3s on CD?
Aparently, people can burn their own CDs full of mp3s, at a very low cost. These CDs can be played in car CD players which are newish, as well as newish portable CD players.
Aparently, you can get rather alot of music onto one CD in mp3 format.

So, to conclude, it's the itunes that makes the difference to the ipod user?

I rest my case
You rest your case?
I mean, case closed.
posted by asok at 5:41 PM on December 8, 2004

I'm with ya centerpunch. Don't let 'em shout you down. The iPod got me back into my great love, music, after a decade of being almost unable to listen to it. Like you, I have "Radio zoogleplex" everywhere I go, commercial free. Sheer Bliss.

I'm sure I could get that with other portable players too, but the iPod and iTunes are elegant and work extremely well for me.

Perhaps frighteningly, quonsar, the iPod DID in fact change my life and my outlook. If I'm in a lousy mood, I can have my favorite music playing instantly, and that makes me feel a whole lot better. Beats the crap out of booze!
posted by zoogleplex at 5:53 PM on December 8, 2004

First thing that came to my mind was the Kikkoman cartoon, mentioned way back in the thread by Smart Dalek. But I thought I'd give the link on the off chance somebody hasn't seen it.
posted by ilsa at 6:23 PM on December 8, 2004

Whilst we are piling on, can I say mp3s on CD?
These CDs can be played in car CD players which are newish, as well as newish portable CD players.
Aparently, you can get rather alot of music onto one CD in mp3 format. So, to conclude, it's the itunes that makes the difference to the ipod user?

Well, no. With MP3 CDs, you still have CDs, just fewer of them. It would take about 60 MP3 CDs to hold as much as my 40 gig ipod. But it's not just the ability to easily carry all of your music, it's the ability to INSTANTLY access any song in your entire library. Say you're talking to a friend, and an obscure 60's one-hit-wonder, or Motown rarity, or Beatles bootleg comes up. You've ALWAYS got it with you! Name a song I like, and I can pull it up and play it in my car in less than a minute. And whereas radio stations rotate maybe 200 songs (and at least half of them suck), my rotation is 7000 songs. If I use the random mode, a listen for an hour a day, it will be over a year before I hear the same song twice! Try it, you'll like it.

The iPod is also one of those very rare products that, even though you have high expectations for it, it exceeds them.
posted by centerpunch at 6:35 PM on December 8, 2004

Everyone seems to be overlooking a far more important issue that is fundamentally altering popular music. What happens to serious challenging music if people cherry pick songs? We will end up with nothing but aural bubble gum. Some of the songs that are the most enduring amongst my favourites are songs that I only got to know because they were in between songs I liked on a cassette tape. Shipbuilding by Elvis Costello is a wonderful example. The song is redolent with smokey jazz and misery and angst, and is exactly the sort of song you skip for something more catchy, and more cliched. What for you is a handy way of avoiding a dreadful radio song is also going to cause the further stagnation of pop music. Sorry to get all heavy on you, this is my first post too, but if you think about it there is a very serious issue at stake here.
posted by milkwood at 6:47 PM on December 8, 2004

Beats the crap out of booze!

sez you!

*reels off curb into path of bus*
posted by quonsar at 6:51 PM on December 8, 2004

Everyone seems to be overlooking a far more important issue that is fundamentally altering popular music. What happens to serious challenging music if people cherry pick songs?

What happens? Not much, I imagine. People have always listened to what they like. I'm pretty sure that as long as music has been and will be produced, people will listen to the things they like, and won't listen to the things they don't like.
posted by jenden at 7:20 PM on December 8, 2004

NO! NO! NO! People have not always listened to what they like. That is the whole point! People have always listened to what they have been exposed to, and from that they pick what they like. But there is sometimes enough repetition of songs that people don't like at first hearing, that they come to like them and thereby expand their musical horizons. What happens to artists like Tom Waites, Leonard Cohen, and Neil Young in a world where you get one chance to ring the bell? Where would Bob Dylan be if people were given the chance to dismiss him after just one song? We are asking for stagnation and a world where pop music never gets too far above the level of nursery rhymes.
posted by milkwood at 7:37 PM on December 8, 2004

That wasn't great at all.

I got that distinct feeling I get when I see over-exaggerated Communist propaganda.

It definitely wasn't a labor of love. It wasn't even artistic. It reeked of marketing. It made me slightly nauseous.

I don't like it.

Ipods might be cool. But I already carry a very expensive palm and cellphone. Should I also carry another several-hundred-dollar gadget around? Any my commute is about 20 minutes.

I also don't like how much emphasis is placed on a gadget. Even a gadget that changes the paradigm. People shouldn't trust technology so much.

I also don't like Beef Rendang. Way too oily.
posted by nixerman at 7:43 PM on December 8, 2004

If I use the random mode, a listen for an hour a day, it will be over a year before I hear the same song twice!

Curiously, ever since Jhonn Balance died, my iPod's random mode keeps kicking off with one or another of Coil's *snow* remixes.

(now it is playing the X-Files theme)
posted by UbuRoivas at 7:46 PM on December 8, 2004

Audiobooks. They make the commute MUCH nicer, and lots of them fit on an iPod. And it takes lots of CDs for just one audiobook - anywhere from five to fifteen or more.

And I thought the ad was cute.
posted by icetaco at 7:50 PM on December 8, 2004

Awesome, mildred-pitt -- let me know when you get those stickers printed up, I wanna put one on my Jetta, right next to the Apple, as I cruise to my dotcom job listening to my iPod with zero hint of irony...
posted by jimray at 8:24 PM on December 8, 2004

Is the world so screwed up that peopel actually think Apple invented the idea of a portable MP3 player? Or even a portable HD based MP3 player?

Sheesh. And they say Windows guys are drones.
posted by soulhuntre at 8:50 PM on December 8, 2004

The font used on the iPod mini is Espy Sans. It, and a number of close approximations, are easily available. Great animation but using the wrong font in the display really sticks out to those who have a lot of truck with fonts; and certainly anyone involved in Apple branding or advertising is going to notice it.
posted by George_Spiggott at 9:36 PM on December 8, 2004

30 minute drive to work? Wooo! That's 30 minutes of quality space out time. Seriously, it's just an mp3 player. I usually just listen to NPR, but I am loser.
posted by jefbla at 9:50 PM on December 8, 2004

If the iPod worshippers remind me of anything, it's the Harley-Davidson cult. Any iPod tattoos out there yet?
posted by QuietDesperation at 10:25 PM on December 8, 2004

I dunno about iPod tats, QD, but there is a guy that I see at my train station occasionally that has a (very prominent) tattoo on his arm of the Apple logo over some crossbones. Damn if that doesn't just lift the grunt of the workday right off of me.
posted by Ufez Jones at 10:47 PM on December 8, 2004

Sometimes I just prefer the silence.
posted by sharpener at 11:00 PM on December 8, 2004

Shhh
posted by rhruska at 11:15 PM on December 8, 2004

Some of the songs that are the most enduring amongst my favourites are songs that I only got to know because they were in between songs I liked on a cassette tape.

It's true that you will no longer discover cool songs on mix tapes your friends give you. That's because they'll simply beam you an MP3 over AIM.
posted by kindall at 11:17 PM on December 8, 2004

If I don't feign to hate my possessions, am I a lost consumer? While I personally refuse to wear anything with a grossly obvious logo as an expression of my general contempt for defining one's self by one's brand choices, I do agree some product brands define a product category due to superior product, versus say clever advertising. From a utilitarian perspective I can appreciate surpassing design.

I've heard technology dehumanizes. Seems more of a lateral shift towards shorter attention spans so far...
posted by Mr. Crowley at 11:54 PM on December 8, 2004

what?
posted by NationalKato at 3:53 AM on December 9, 2004

Is milkwood honestly suggesting that the world is a less-great place because we don't have to listen to music we don't like?
posted by Hildegarde at 4:18 AM on December 9, 2004

sharpener, rhruska, jefbla.

Thank you.
posted by grateful at 6:28 AM on December 9, 2004

I don't see anything wrong with defining oneself based on one's taste in the objects with which one chooses to surround oneself.

Defining oneself through one's music, however, makes absolutely no sense and rather frightens me.
posted by IshmaelGraves at 7:37 AM on December 9, 2004

Self link only because its so eeriely similar to what I just finished.
posted by still at 6:33 PM EST on December 8

That's great! I'm not into visual razzle-dazzle but that last line ('be ready to go wherever the music takes you') mixed with the audio left a sweet impression.
posted by Firas at 2:10 PM on December 9, 2004 [1 favorite]

Nice animation, I hope the guy does get a job from this.
posted by escorter at 6:55 AM on December 10, 2004