September 25, 2007

Are Macs girly?

Quick question: what is so girly about Macs? I'm not a partisan, since I'm pretty low-tech. But in the main library here, they is a silly division between two sides -- one with about 100 Macs, and the other with about 100 PCs. The Mac side always seems to have a higher proportion of girls, and the PC side a higher proportion of guys.

Is it the design consciousness of Macs? I never use them because they take too long to load things, but they do have greater visual and tactile appeal.

10 comments:

  1. oh yeah, macs are girly.

    why? macs are cool, pcs not.
    macs are self-contained.
    pcs can be built from scratch (hence, they are saddled with a nerd image).
    ergonomically and aesthetically, macs are "softer", pcs "aggressive".
    macs cater to the creative multimedia crowd -- tres girly.
    pcs cater to the perl-scripting crowd.
    macs are emo, pcs autistic.

    despite all this, i think it helps a guy to use a mac over a pc if his goal is to round out himself as a ladies man.

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  2. My speculation:

    Macs used to have a big compatibility problem (throughout the nineties). The gender imbalance of regular computer use was more pronounced than it is now. Most guys entered the computing realm with PCs because you didn't run into all the problems a Mac entailed. That's what we learned to use, and it works fine for all of our purposes, so why change? Girls mostly came into the game later, so they were confronted with choices that were functionally pretty interchangeable, so they went with the pretty Macs that are easier to find open in a computer lab than the PC section is.

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  3. roissy -- remember that article you reviewed where a guy pretended to be his hot nanny to screen her suitors? One guy said, "I'm a geek, but a cool geek because I use a Mac." Like I said, I don't follow these wars, but I think Macs may see significant geek infiltration.

    AE -- these are mostly undergrads, so 18-21. Would that be true for them? It would for me, but I'm an old fogie -- I went through puberty before the internet was popular.

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  4. Macs are easier to use, PCs have more games available, and more gadgets. More guys like games and gadgets, so more guys like PCs. Women who like games and gadgets also like PCs over Macs. Women who don't care about games and gadgets go the path of least resistance - ie Macs.

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  5. HA! I'M not even girly, much less is any of my stuff pink. I'm a WOMAN, even an OLD woman, and it's a lot easier to roar on a Mac. I used to have to use PC's in the offices where I worked and I only have three words: crash, crash, crash.

    Anyway, I'm from the PNW and know WAAAY too much scuttlebutt about Microsoft.

    Prairie Mary

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  6. Ditto what Prairie Mary said (except I'm a guy). My full-time tech-support-assisted PC at work crashes many times a week (and hard-crashes - unplug to reboot - a few times a month). My hand-me-down frankenstein Mac has crashed probably twice in the year that I've used it. (I can't compare the technical difficulty of what the machines are asked to do, but it seems about the same - moderately easy - to me.)

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  7. But is it that it's a PC per se, or that your work uses crappy PCs? Honest question. My ThinkPad (...let's see... T40) works great and is just as easy to use and self-contained as a Mac.

    Macs are more attractive and emo, but they emblazon their logo all over the damn thing. The IBM logo on mine is small and tucked away in the corner, while the apple on a Mac is bullseye center and is so large you can see it from across a large room.

    So after thinking about it, maybe I do favor (well-built) PCs, although I don't really care. It really is the logo thing -- like a Mercedes or BMW, it's one of those annoying girls (usually they're girls) who shouts across the room to get her friend's attention. Just shut up.

    Contrast that with the logo on an Aston Martin -- not that I'm saying ThinkPads are like these.

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  8. I'd definitely say, Macs are really ... supergay.

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  9. despite all this, i think it helps a guy to use a mac over a pc if his goal is to round out himself as a ladies man.

    While I'm not an expert on the subject, seems to me picking computers isn't the way to pick up girls...

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  10. I agree with you that Mac takes a long time to download pages, a quizzical for me because I always thought Macs were super.

    But are Macs girly?

    *HAHA* Hell yeah! Well, I'm not sure if "girly" is meant as

    a. feminine

    or

    b. for females

    The second definition could prove dangerous and threaten eggs thrown in your direction from hardcore feminists *smile* And actually the first definition is not so safe either since it implies that males or the masculine aren't design savvy (which couldn't be further from the truth).

    From a woman's point of view, I think BOTH *gak*!

    But I say that only because I'm woman, I'm so not techno savvy and I'm into fashion / design / all things pretty.

    Engine? What engine? I buy cars by colours *wry smile*

    So the Mac is perfect for me. If it doesn't work, it doesn't work. I don't need to figure out why and get all depressed about it.

    If I were on PC, I'd have avenues to explore and troubleshooting possibilities. And then get depressed because I can't. Of course you can troubleshoot a Mac too, but I'd rather live in that ignorance and say, "Okay, it's dead".

    With a Mac, I can always blame the Mac. *grin*

    Cheryl

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