apple is not a cult, it's something wierder, something new. apple is a culture based on a corporation, on the same scale as many other historical groups like the nazis, the hippies, etc. ask yourself seriously how strange it is that people walk around with corporate logos shaved into their heads. it is just further proof that the rise of nationalism has been eclipsed by corporate globalism, in which corporations will soon have more significance than countries. but does global culture have to be corporate culture? but i think apple has it figured out... if your customer base is walking around in arm bands emblazoned with your logo, i think you win.

pop being so commercialized is a sad thing, because pop was cool. beatles, led zeppelin... the music enjoyed by the mainstream of youth was just way better as industrialization hadn''t fully developed, and it's strangling pop. what pop was cannot exist in a world in which the definition of pop is tightly controlled... it's better when it's more chaotic. the folk music of modern times, pop, needs to belong to the folk. but for anything close to that to happen, it has to be a lot less worth the expense that drives them to control things so tightly. in a system in which such measures are not lucrative, because compensating profits will not be sufficiently guaranteed, pop will take on a more organic form. just as steamships now seem quaint, so too do the industrial practices in which mass produced culture could be genuine. we're way past that point. other culture still exists, but the 800 pound gorilla of corporate marketing changes the situation just by standing in the room. and the only road toward unleashing this process from tight control is to make it unprofitable, making folk music again about the folk.