Can we just have one day where it doesn’t feel like our tech overlords are trying to run us directly into a dystopic nightmare? This week, Apple unveiled an ad for the new iPad called “Crush”. It depicts various musical instruments, works of art, books, art materials, and symbols of human knowledge being smashed to smithereens only to reveal the thinnest iPad ever. 

 

Check it out:

 

I get the concept of this ad. All human knowledge and creative tools are contained in one slim device. Neat! But BOY did the marketing whizz kids at Apple misjudge the moment. They might as well have shown us sixty seconds of rich people throwing food overboard on Steve Jobs’ gross super yacht for how well received “Crush” was. 

 

Everyone saw this ad and said a resounding Thanks, I hate it, including Hugh Grant.

His Twitter handle isn’t “Hacked Off Hugh” for nothing. But Grant also gets to the heart of why I think people hate this ad. It’s not like people won’t buy this iPad, of course they will. It’s probably even a great device. But despite how thin and sleek and fast our devices get, people still LIKE trumpets and turntables and books and globes and pianos and sculptures. If anything, we like physical objects MORE in the digital age, and will probably cling to them harder as AI takes over more and more of our daily lives. 

It’s not even an anti-technology thing, it’s just that the easier it gets to make stuff, the more we appreciate the effort of handmade goods. For instance, the Industrial Revolution was met with the Arts & Craft movement that prized handmade woodwork, textiles, and naturalistic gardens. And as we passed through the third wave of the digital revolution, small batch and artisanal goods were popularized. We like things to be easy, but we also appreciate it when someone puts in the effort to physically make something.

 

This Apple ad comes across as devaluing physical effort, particularly in the creative space, and it comes at a time when creative industry is already under threat from further technological advancement. For instance, Musician Steven Marriott’s friends and family are fighting to stop the release of “new” recordings of his work featuring AI vocals. His third wife, who inherited his estate after he passed away less than two years into their marriage, authorized the recordings over the objection of everyone else affiliated with him. It reminds me of Anna Strasberg, who never met Marilyn Monroe, inheriting Monroe’s estate when Lee Strasberg died and going to heavily commercialize Monroe’s image.

 

Ironically, Apple has always been known for their great marketing campaigns, ever since their landmark 1984 Super Bowl commercial introducing the Macintosh computer. 

 

That ad, though, is premised upon personal computing freeing people from singular technological control. Here is the power of knowledge in your hands, no one can stop you knowing things now. “Crush”, in turn, promises to return that individual power of knowledge to singular technological control. Why do you need all this junk when you can have this one device? Well, we no longer love and trust the devices, for one thing, so we’re keeping the junk because a metronome doesn’t spy on me like my goddamn thermostat does. 

 

In the long run, I’m sure a bad commercial will not impact iPad sales. People will line up to buy the new iPad as they do for every Apple device. But I do think it’s telling of the moment that the backlash to this commercial was SO strong and united. Our tech overlords are no longer beloved, and while we accept the presence of devices in our daily lives, we don’t love them anymore, and we especially don’t love them at the expense of the “junk” that keeps the method of creation in our hands. It’s just a deep misunderstanding of how people actually use devices like iPads. They’re not replacements for human creativity and labor, they’re tools that aid in that labor. Sorry Apple, but your tech mirror isn’t a revolution, it’s just another metronome. That spies on us.

Here is Hugh Grant with his godson, Damian Hurley. It is freaky how much Damian looks like his mother, Liz.