Are we going to see the Blue Man Group in a Silhouette Ad?
Apple is switching to Intel. Who cares? There's so many different takes on what this means online this week, and I, for one, am already bored to tears with the whole topic. Most likely, all it will really mean is that we'll have faster laptops from Apple that don't feel like they are cooking the upper few layers of your derma should you be wearing shorts and decide to prop one of them on your knees. [Aside: Well, that, and Apple users will have to get used to Intel Bios settings to properly protect their machines. Also, I will now no longer be able to say things like, "Wintel sucks!" with the same fervor.]
Now, what does interest me is the marketing spin around the whole Apple + Intel thing. Last night, as the T.V. flickered in the background, I noticed everyone's favorite grown-up nightmare version of the Smurfs: the Blue Man Group. These three, rarely-blinking blue guys were floating around in jet-packs touting the improved battery power and processor speed of Intel's wonderfully speedy chips for mobile computing, and one of the blue guys' pants flew off as he jetted upwards into the upper stratosphere of the clean white nothingness in which he was floating.
This morning—as I contemplated the intricacies of the contradiction embedded in the name Blue Man Group for people that appear as large blue asexual beings, then began comparing them to the Smurfs, and then began thinking about Dr. Tobias Fünke auditioning to be a member of the Blue Man Group with all the mixed representations of his own sexuality—I suddenly thought: Are we going to see the Blue Man Group in Apple-branded adverts? Is there a chance of these blue beings banging on their musical contraptions in multicolored backgrounds while silhouette dancers rock out around them? Would you welcome such an Intel + Apple marketing campaign? Or would it just reinforce your perceptions of the Blue Man Group being a fully-painted group of sell outs?