The Anti iPod culture

Call me an apoligist for the iPod pop culture (apoligist because I don’t have an iPod), but I think this anti-ipod campaign by SanDisk is horribly disengenous. It plays into a common sentiment that not having an iPod is somehow rebellious, because it resists some pressure to conform. SanDisk now offers those people a product that supposedly allows them to continue being rebels, but allows them to gain all the conveniences brought by being a “conformist”, not realizing that they’ve just been dupped because Sans is not part of a cultural movement, but a company feeding on people’s agnst!

SanDisk is not a cultural alternative, they are the norm, they are bland. They are the CompactFlash for your digital camera, and the USB stick in your key chain. They are not better nor worse than Apple, or the iPod. They are both companies that feed on what you perceive to be self expression. Painting and MP3 player black and having a company attempt to associate itself with an anti pop cultural “movement” is as disingenuous as Wal-mart selling Che t-shirts.

I recommend reading NO LOGO by Naomi Klein and watching Merchants of Cool for more information on the commericalization of sub cultures. It can some times be upsetting to see a valid and genuine movement become so heavily commericalized that it loses its essence. Once you’re being sold back an image of what it means to be part of a sub culture, the sub culture has become characture of itself and loses all substance. While the anti ipod movement is pretty much meaningless, I think this move by SanDisk demonostrates the lame attempts that companies take in order to encompass every little last drop sub groups.