As a musician, the availability of cheap instruments doesn’t reduce the impact of the symbolism in this ad from my perspective.
It’s not just a question of monetary value or quality, and is more about the implications of the imagery and the resulting questions it raises about the goals of a multi trillion dollar company.
You’re welcome to do whatever you want with your $60 trumpet, and that’s not going to bother me. I see that as orthogonal to the issues with a company of Apple’s size and reach symbolically destroying an entire room full of creative objects while selling to people who are deeply invested in those objects in their own lives.
> a company of Apple’s size and reach symbolically destroying an entire room full of creative objects while selling to people who are deeply invested in those objects in their own lives.
Is it the symbolism that's the is the issue or what's actually been happening for the past 40 years? There's a reason it is called "Garage Band". There's a reason it is called "Paint". Apple isn't investing in the camera tech for the past 15 years so people don't use it. Their ads showing the incredible non-retouched photos with iPhones seems like much more of an attack than this ad.
I think the two go hand in hand, i.e. what's actually been happening for the last 40 years is the context in which this ad was introduced, and the reason the ad feels so bad for many people.
There's a big difference between using product names that align with the analog versions of the tools and symbolically destroying a room full of tools that people often find give them purpose and meaning. It just feels gauche.
> Their ads showing the incredible non-retouched photos with iPhones seems like much more of an attack than this ad.
The difference to me is that one is saying: "look how good our cameras are now, and here's an example of what you can get out of them" and the other is saying "we can just crush this entire room full of tools now because look at this iPad".
I'm not bothered by the camera ads. As a person who carries a camera and loves cameras, the iPhone is a supplement to my kit and the better it gets, the more flexibility I have.
But crushing a shelf full of lenses just makes me cringe.
Definitely their goal is to stop people from playing trumpets and instead play angry birds.
Somebody who worked on this ad probably feels passionately about one of the things which was crushed, and thought it would just be a fun ad. Sure, marketing is their main gig, but they love to get home and throw on some Miles Davis after a long day. They probably never bothered to think too hard about the ramifications of a stupid ad because it’s just their dumb job.
Or maybe they knew 100% what they were doing and it’s evil turtles all the way down.
This means you’re scared a tablet can replace you as a musician. If you have that fear, maybe you should look into it more because from a non musicians perspective, I don’t believe it replaces them, just makes those sounds available to everyone.
It’s not just a question of monetary value or quality, and is more about the implications of the imagery and the resulting questions it raises about the goals of a multi trillion dollar company.
You’re welcome to do whatever you want with your $60 trumpet, and that’s not going to bother me. I see that as orthogonal to the issues with a company of Apple’s size and reach symbolically destroying an entire room full of creative objects while selling to people who are deeply invested in those objects in their own lives.