“Oh no, I don’t want to be a PC,” said the girl sitting next to me. She’d inadvertently logged into the Windows 7 install on the dual-booting 27″ Apple iMac she was sitting in front of. “I want to be a Mac.”
It was our first night at this particular class at OCAD. We were here to learn to use Adobe Illustrator. Moments earlier, I had watched her wander the halls with a look on her face that silently exclaimed, “Where the fuck am I supposed to go?” I’m sure I was wearing the exact same expression. To mirror her even further, I also had logged into the Windows instance on my iMac.
“Oh, you’re logged into Windows too?” asked the instructor, as she moved along the row of desks. There was a hint of disappointment in her tone. “That’s OK, you can use Windows or Mac, it doesn’t matter really.” I could tell what she was saying wasn’t what she was thinking.
It felt a bit odd to be sitting in a room full of Apple iMacs—the biggest, shiniest ones Apple makes—because earlier in the week, I’d listened to a This American Life podcast about one of Apple’s factories in Shenzhen, China.
In this podcast, Mike Daisey performs an excerpt of his one-man show, “The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs.” He tells of an iPhone that came off the line with its test pictures—pictures from inside the factory in which it was assembled—still intact, and how these images inspired him to find out more about how his beloved Apple products were made.
Don’t get me wrong: I don’t think Apple is any more or less evil then the myriad of other electronics-producing companies out there. They just make an interesting focal point because everybody loves their slickly designed products. In a time of economic hardships, their products fuel consumerism unlike anything I can personally remember (except for maybe the Cabbage Patch Kid craze of the 80s). But the factories that make Apple products make a lot of other companies’ products, too. Chances are, you own something that was made by Foxconn.
There is debate about whether or not companies like Foxconn are actually good for the people in the towns in which they operate their factories, but even so, I think it’s healthy to know where the stuff you buy comes from. I guess what it comes down to is this: I want to strive to be the smallest asshole that I can be. I think, if I’m going to be an asshole, I should at least recognize that I’m being an asshole. If my consumerism is being made possible by some 13 year-old girl working her little hands into carpel tunnel syndrome hell, then the very least I can do is not ignore that that’s happening. How could I possibly aspire to become less of an asshole if I don’t even recognize that I am one to begin with?
My boss found the podcast so interesting/moving that he lent me a copy of Shenzhen – A Travelogue From China, by Guy Delisle. It’s a graphic novel he adapted from the journals he’d kept during the 3 months he spent in Shenzhen. So far it’s really good. He’s also written one about Pyongyang, North Korea, which I think I will buy. I don’t think there are any 13 year-old girls slaving away at making these books, but I guess I should look into that.
