An apple in religion

Is Apple fandom a religion?

As Apple fans await Tuesday’s expected announcement of a smaller iPad, an anthropologist notes the event’s similarities with religious revivals.

October 23, 2012

Apple’s emphasis on its icon and the company’s policy of not live-streaming its launch events are just a couple ways that Apple product launches resemble religious revival meetings, according to one anthropologist.

Many Apple observers and academic researchers have covered how Mac fan culture can seem a little like a religion — or a cult. With the upcoming iPad «Mini» launch event, however, TechNewsDaily wanted to take a deeper look at Apple product launches. We asked Kirsten Bell, an anthropologist at the University of British Columbia in Canada, to look at some launch videos for us.

She came to some of the same conclusions as her predecessors, including Eastern Washington University sociologist Pui-Yan Lam, who published an academic paper more than a decade ago that called Mac fandom an «implicit religion.»

«A stranger observing one of the launches could probably be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into a religious revival meeting,» Bell wrote to TechNewsDaily in an email. Bell now studies the culture of modern biomedical research, but before she got interested in scientists, she studied messianic religious movements in South Korea.

Apple’s product launches take place in a building «littered with sacred symbols, especially the iconic Apple sign itself,» she said. During keynote speeches, an Apple leader «addresses the audience to reawaken and renew their faith in the core message and tenets of the brand/religion.»

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Even Apple’s tradition of not broadcasting launches in real time is akin to a religious event, Bell said. (Today’s event will be available live on Apple’s website.) «Like many Sacred Ceremonies, the Apple Product Launch cannot be broadcast live,» she wrote. «The Scribes/tech journalists act as Witness, testifying to the wonders they behold via live blog feeds.»

Apple-as-religion isn’t the perfect analogy, Bell said later, over the phone. «It’s ultimately a somewhat superficial comparison,» she said. «Religion is trying to do something different from a computer brand.» Religion tries to give life meaning and explain humanity’s purpose, she said. «It’s trying to explain questions that are very different from what science and technology is oriented to.»

For anyone seriously trying to understand Apple product launches and culture, using the religion analogy could help, but it might also keep people from noticing other interesting aspects of the culture that don’t fit in with the metaphor, she said.

Yet there are strong reasons people have long compared Apple culture to religion, Bell said. «They are selling something more than a product,» she said. «When you look at the way they advertise their product, it’s really about a more connected life.» A better life is something many faiths promise, she said.

In addition, like many faiths, the Apple brand emphasizes its origin story and its founder, Steve Jobs. Few other technology companies are so strongly associated with one person, although one came to mind for Bell: «Microsoft would be the only one that would even come close,» she said.

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About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

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Apple causes ‘religious’ reaction in brains of fans, say neuroscientists

People have often talked about “the cult of Apple”, and if a recent BBC TV documentary is to be believed, there could be something in it.

The program, Secrets of the Superbrands, looks at why technology megabrands such as Apple, Facebook and Twitter have become so popular and such a big part of many people’s lives.

In the first episode, presenter Alex Riley decided to take a look at Apple. He wanted to discover what it is about the company that makes people so emotional. Footage of the opening of the Cupertino company’s Covent Garden store in central London last year showed hordes of Apple devotees lining up outside overnight, while the staff whipped up customers (and themselves) into something of an evangelical frenzy. This religious-like fervor got Riley thinking – he decided to take a closer look at the inside of the head of an Apple fanatic to see what on earth was going on in there.

Riley contacted the editor of World of Apple, Alex Brooks, an Apple worshipper who claims to think about Apple 24 hours a day, which is possibly 23 hours too many for most regular people. A team of neuroscientists studied Brooks’ brain while undergoing an MRI scan, to see how it reacted to images of Apple products and (heaven forbid) non-Apple products.

According to the neuroscientists, the scan revealed that there were marked differences in Brooks’ reactions to the different products. Previously, the scientists had studied the brains of those of religious faith, and they found that, as Riley puts it: “The Apple products are triggering the same bits of [Brooks’] brain as religious imagery triggers in a person of faith.”

“This suggests that the big tech brands have harnessed, or exploit, the brain areas that have evolved to process religion,” one of the scientists says. A meeting with the Bishop of Buckingham, who reads the Bible using his Apple iPad, appeared to back up this assertion. He pointed out how the Apple store in, for example, Covent Garden has a lot of religious imagery built into it, with its stone floors, abundance of arches, and little altars (on which the products are displayed). And of course, the documentary doesn’t fail to give Steve Jobs a mention, calling him “the Messiah”.

Secrets of the Superbrands also looks at the likes of Facebook, which has enjoyed phenomenal success in just a few years. “Like Apple, mobile phones and social networks offer an opportunity for us to express our basic human need to communicate. And it’s by tapping into our basic needs, like gossip, religion or sex that these brands are taking over our world at such lightning speed,” Riley says. He concludes: “That’s not to say that clever marketing and brilliant technical innovation aren’t also crucial, but it seems that if you’re not providing a service which is of potential interest to every one of the 6.9 billion human beings on the planet, the chances are you’re never going to become a technology superbrand.”

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Anthropologist ‘confirms’ Apple is a religion

Worship me, for I am Apple.

Charlie Osborne is a cybersecurity journalist and photographer who writes for ZDNet and CNET from London. PGP Key: AF40821B.

Think religion, think ritual: history, perhaps sacred writings, proscribed sets of moral laws, and potentially a sacrifice or two. There are plenty of organizations and cultures around the world that claim they adhere to a certain set of beliefs, but could adoration and a cult following for a technology firm be the next step?

The University of British Columbia’s Dr. Kirsten Bell believes that much of the aforementioned applies to Apple. After observing launch videos, and recently attending the iPad mini launch for TechNewsDaily, the social anthropologist said that Mac fandom has some strikingly similar parallels between a religion or cult status:

A stranger observing one of the launches could probably be forgiven for thinking they had stumbled into a religious revival meeting.

Before specializing in the biomedical field, the research fellow conducted fieldwork on new religious movements in South Korea until 2005. Based on this experience, Bell believes that Apple is «littered with sacred symbols» — most notably, the iconic Apple logo. (Ironically, some believe the bitten Apple is «anti-Christian»).

It’s not like any other firm uses a logo for representation, or goes through the revamp process to stay modern and recognizable. Oh, no.

There are a number of theories surrounding what makes a religion, and what separates ‘cults’ from the former revered nametag. For the sake of argument, in anthropological terms, these suggested principles of a «cult» are worth keeping in mind:

1. A charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power;
2. A process which may include coercive persuasion or thought reform;
3. Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and rulers.

So, what does Bell say? And are Apple fanboys really ‘cultish’?

Point 1: «A charismatic leader who increasingly becomes an object of worship as the general principles that may have originally sustained the group lose their power.»

A crucial component in structured religious organizations, from Christianity to Scientology, a charismatic leader is necessary to preach a point or sway a crowd. Where do these leaders come from in Apple? Bell’s answer is simple. During keynote speeches, each Apple executive «addresses the audience to reawaken and renew their faith in the core message and tenets of the brand [or] religion».

Feel free to also compare the creation myths of Christianity and Babylon to the founding of Apple and Steve Jobs, but anthropologist to anthropologist, I’m fairly sure that’s called «public relations,» — I’m sure you know, where one tries to make consumers and businesses alike excited about a product or service a company is promoting, in order to make money or gain decent press exposure.

If your fans are passionate, great. It’ll mean they may not be so angry about spending hundreds of dollars on an iPad made obsolete just over half a year later.

I’m also yet to see a loss in power from Apple itself. The technology giant is one of the most popular and powerful technology companies on the planet, and in spite of its founder’s death, the firm shows no signs of slowing down without such an iconic figurehead.

It’s only in the moment an Apple executive asks the crowd to bow and send their prayers to an iPhone that I will begin to worry.

Point 2: «A process which may include coercive persuasion or thought reform.»

Apple traditionally does not broadcast its launches live — although its latest media event was available on the company’s website — though this anomaly in practice also came under scrutiny from Bell. «Like many Sacred Ceremonies, the Apple Product Launch cannot be broadcast live,» she wrote. «The Scribes [and] tech journalists act as Witness, testifying to the wonders they behold via live blog feeds.»

Ah, a wonderful new shiny has been released, time to empty the bank account and remortgage the house. Sorry honey, Apple told me to do it. It’s morally the right thing to do.

«Sacred ceremony» aside, the point of product launches is promotion — to show a product in its best light — make consumers aware of its existence, and entice people to prise open their wallets. If this is a «wonder to behold», then naturally people are going to want to buy it.

Apple doesn’t coerce their customers, or fill their heads with brain-washing thoughts. Wait until the iPhone and iPad maker has their own floating version of Scientology’s Sea Org used as a religious retreat. Until then, the jury’s out on the wonders of the iPad manipulating the general public.

Point 3: «Economic, sexual, and other exploitation of group members by the leader and the rulers»

Sexual exploitation is out of the running here, so let’s take a look at the economics of a so-called «cult». Scientology lets you increase your ‘thetan’ (or ‘god’) level by contributions to the organization, the Church once ruled and taxed with an iron fist, and Apple wants you to buy its products. What’s the difference? Apple is a business. It’s sole purpose is to make money. It promises you a product and level of service, nothing more.

If you don’t buy the new iPhone, your firstborn son won’t be taken — relax.

If Apple releases a subpar product, consumers will knock it off the tech pedestal. Nokia used to be the ‘king of the cellphone’, but as it failed to keep up with the expanding smartphone market, rivals Apple and Google exploited the market weakness.

It’s feasible that if Apple failed to keep up with consumer trends and its popularity waned, fewer people would buy its products. That’s business 101, and consumers would find a new darling of the tech world.

But what other factors are there to consider if you try to compare a technology firm to a religion or cult? Although Bell says the comparison is «superficial» as religion has a different purpose to business, where one tries to explain life’s questions and another tries to make money (I guess Scientology’s out then, ‘thetans’ and all. ) Bell observes that Apple is more than just about selling a smartphone or tablet:

«They are selling something more than a product. When you look at the way they advertise their product, it’s really about a more connected life.»

Sounds familiar? Nokia is involved in «connecting people» too, and Cisco talks about the «power of the network.» JRC says, «y ou don’t need wires to communicate,» and perhaps you could go so far as saying that Dynamic Systems’ mantra that, «s trength on your side» is bordering on divine intervention.

Apple is not a religion. It has a loyal following as a company, and it is both the technology industry and the fan base which adds a level of reverence to Apple events — not because we’re hanging on every word that passes the lips of an Apple spokesman — but likely and simply because the products are cool.

The tech industry likes them, consumers like them, and every move Apple makes can seriously impact and change the industry as a whole.

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