From: Robbi Eklow
I have a lot of your books, as I think you are the BEST Mac author there
is. I just bought Mac OS X: The Missing Manual, Panther Edition to replace my old Missing Manual for just plain OS X, and I'm loving it.
Except, I cannot stand it when you call Mac users "Mac fans."
This is such a stupid term. I don't remember running across
it before in your writing. It irritates me to no end. It's
distracting. It bothers me because I adore your writing so,
and here is this big blot on the face of it.
It annoys me because, even though I have had a Mac since
1992, I am not a "Mac fan," and I refuse to refer to myself as
one. To me, a "fan" is someone who admires someone from afar.
I am a fan of Sarah McLachlan. I am a fan of James Taylor. I
own a Mac; I use a Mac. James Taylor does not come to my
house or do my chores.
I am 46 years old, and I don't like to be called a Mac fan any more
than I like being called a Dummy.
Several months ago I went to CompUSA, and some kid working
there said to me, "Are you a Mac fan?" The question seemed
so stupid and annoying, I had to pause a minute in order not
to be rude. I said, "I am not a fan, I am a longtime user."
What if you referred to us as "longtime Mac users," "Mac
aficionados," "knowledgeable Mac users," "veteran Mac
users" . . . ? Get my drift?
I did notice you put a false first page on your Dummies
books. I must not have been the only person to write and tell
you that I think the title Macs for Dummies is stupid because
Mac people, by definition, are not dummies.
BTW, a light turned on the other night and I decided that PCs really aren't
computers. They are machines that are trying to be what computers should be,
but haven't reached the level of sophistication that should define a computer.
This was after having bought a new PowerBook (my fifth Mac), an
iSight, an iPod, and a lot of accessories in one month, while
totally ignoring the Dell I bought a year ago in order to run
a specific application that would not run under Virtual PC.
My husband swears at his Dell on a daily basis. I don't swear
at mine; it's just a machine. However, I have hugged my
PowerBook several times this week.
Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks even more for writing.
Robbi
Hi Robbi,
Very, very interesting! Nobody's ever commented on this term before.
I use "Mac fans" with a great deal of thought, for two reasons:
I can't abide the term "users" for people who use computers.
As you know,
there's only one other industry that calls its customers "users,"
and I hate
to lump in my readers with drug addicts!
Most people who use Macs do so because they're passionate. They've made
a choice, unlike Windows PC users who are most often stuck with the PC at
work, having been given no choice. The term "Mac fans," in my book,
is a subtle acknowledgment that we actually like our computers--we don't just use
them.
Nonetheless, I'll fish around for alternatives. "Aficionados" is
OK, except that it implies a degree of expertise that novices may not have. Let me know
if you come up with any alternatives!
David
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