I swore I wasn't going to write anything about Apple's newly announced iPad, but I suppose it's unavoidable. Instead of its benefits or flaws, however, what's interested me the most about the gadget is the public reaction to its name.
It seems that back in 2007, MadTV wrote a spoof of Apple's raging devicitude, in the form of a parodic advertisement for a product they called iPad—except their iPad was, well, a feminine hygiene product.
It's a funny sketch, but after Apple's announcement, it seems many people took the name seriously, and not in a good way.
And the vast majority of tweets referencing the iTampon are issued or retweeted by women. And adding Apple's self-inflicted insult to that injury is the Apple iPad video itself, presented by three white male Apple senior level employees and including no women, and one very provocative segment where a man is using the iPad, where it's placed between his legs and at his crouch, and the woman points to a feature on the iPad right near his crotch.
Some compared the purportedly poorly chosen name to the Nintendo Wii, which secured its own guffaws when announced in 2006. Despite the curious spelling, it still seemed to refer to urination or worse, a diminutive for the device that accomplishes such acts. The Wii's unique, uh, pointer only reinforced such ideas. Still, eventually people stopped hearing the gag. The elderly bowled with it. The young swung their lightsabers.
With the iPad, some of the reaction turned from amusement to apparently earnest outrage. I saw several tweets link to this list of Apple executive profiles, arguing that a senior executive roster comprised of all white men clearly explained why the "inappropriateness" of the name "iPad" would have escaped the company's notice. Some more measured responses claimed not to express affront themselves, but rather embarrassment at Apple's "cluelessness."
I'm going to avoid editorializing about the matter myself. Instead, I want to make an observation that I haven't yet heard, but that should be obvious: the reaction to iPad shows that internet infantilism has gone mainstream. No longer are toilet and body part jokes relegated to the locker room or the slumber party or the IRC channel or the web forum. Or even the weekend variety show, which serves as a carnivalesque respite from the week. Now, apparently, we can feel free to unfurl it anywhere.
What to think about such a shift in the expectations for discourse? It's hard to say yet. Some might argue that it's a part of a larger shift in privacy expectations. Others might say that its an example of an increasingly banal depravity. As for me, I'm not sure. If I get any ideas, I'll make sure I keep a notepad on the nightstand, so I can pad them out without having to pad across the floor, in the dark, to find my iPad.
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