Apple’s ‘Crush’ ad is disgusting
Apple can generally be relied on for clever, well-produced ads, but it missed the mark with its latest, which depicts a tower of creative tools and analog items literally crushed into the form of the iPad.
Apple has since apologized for the ad and canceled plans to televise it. Appleâs VP of Marketing Tor Myhren told Ad Age: âWe missed the mark with this video, and weâre sorry.â Apple declined to offer further comment to TechCrunch.
But many, including myself, had a negative and visceral reaction to this, and we should talk about why. Itâs not just because we are watching stuff get crushed. There are countless video channels dedicated to crushing, burning, exploding, and generally destroying everyday objects. Plus, of course, we all know that this kind of thing happens daily at transfer stations and recycling centers. So it isnât that.
And it isnât that the stuff is itself so valuable. Sure, a piano is worth something. But we see them blown up in action movies all the time and donât feel bad. I like pianos, but that doesnât mean we canât do without a few disused baby grands. Same for the rest: Itâs mostly junk you could buy off Craigslist for a few bucks, or at a dump for free. (Maybe not the editing station.)
The problem isnât with the video itself, which in fairness to the people who staged and shot it, is actually very well done. The problem is not the media, but the message.
We all get the adâs ostensible point: You can do all this stuff in an iPad. Great. We could also do it on the last iPad, of course, but this one is thinner (no one asked for that, by the way; now cases wonât fit) and some made-up percentage better.
What we all understand, though â because unlike Apple ad executives, we live in the world â is that the things being crushed here represent the material, the tangible, the real. And the real has value. Value that Apple clearly believes it can crush into yet another black mirror.
This belief is disgusting to me. And apparently to many others, as well.
Destroying a piano in a music video or Mythbusters episode is actually an act of creation. Even destroying a piano (or monitor, or paint can, or drum kit) for no reason at all is, at worst, wasteful!
But what Apple is doing is destroying these things to convince you that you donât need them â all you need is the companyâs little device, which can do all that and more, and no need for annoying stuff like strings, keys, buttons, brushes or mixing stations.
Weâre all dealing with the repercussions of media moving wholesale toward the digital and always-online. In many ways, itâs genuinely good! I think technology has been hugely empowering.
But in other, equally real ways, the digital transformation feels harmful and forced, a technotopian billionaire-approved vision of the future where every child has an AI best friend and can learn to play the virtual guitar on a cold glass screen.
Does your child like music? They donât need a harp; throw it in the dump. An iPad is good enough. Do they like to paint? Here, Apple Pencil, just as good as pens, watercolors, oils! Books? Donât make us laugh! Destroy them. Paper is worthless. Use another screen. In fact, why not read in Apple Vision Pro, with even faker paper?
What Apple seems to have forgotten is that it is the things in the real world â the very things Apple destroyed â that give the fake versions of those things value in the first place.
A virtual guitar canât replace a real guitar; thatâs like thinking a book can replace its author.
That doesnât mean we canât value both for different reasons. But the Apple ad sends the message that the future it wants doesnât have bottles of paint, dials to turn, sculpture, physical instruments, paper books. Of course, thatâs the future itâs been working on selling us for years now, it just hadnât put it quite so bluntly before.
When someone tells you who they are, believe them. Apple is telling you what it is, and what it wants the future to be, very clearly. If that future doesnât disgust you, youâre welcome to it.