Question – Has God himself come down on Earth? Has a store opened in BKC, Mumbai and Saket, Delhi? Does that store sell products only from a single brand? Does the store have eight rows filled with pedestals of the same products? Does the store look awesome?
Rational consumer – No. Yes. Yes. Yes.
Apple Fanboy – YES! YES, OMG! I LOVE IT! WHY NOT? IT IS THE GREATEST ON PLANET EARTH!
If you were off the internet in the last two weeks of April or were living under a rock, congratulations! You could not have been in a better place. Let me give you a bit of news. Apple opened their first stores in India. And, my friend, if you did not guess already, fanboys were throwing themselves at the glass walls of the store. One Apple fan even went as far as getting their hair styled to have an Apple logo on their head! Yes, it happened.
What has the world come to? That’s the question you must ask. Well, the simple answer is ‘a continuous charade of incomprehensible fanboyism and celebrations of insignificant things’. Now, before all you fanboys come in and send a barrage of hate towards me (idk either way, come at me bro, Twitter – @BooManHate), let me present my side of things.
Apple opened their first stores in India. Fine. They look good from the outside. Fine. They have all the Apple products under one roof. Who cares? Mr Tim Apple came down to inaugurate the store. Good for him. But, why can’t everyone just calm down? Relax folks. It is just a store.
Every day with my morning cup of tea, I like to open Twitter and go through some of the nonsensical trends in the hunt for some news that would not raise my blood pressure. But, each day, I am greeted with something that actually makes me annoyed and, at the same time, pity the way people are behaving these days. It has come down to the point where to keep myself from flinging my cup off my balcony, I have to listen to Lo-Fi music. That is the only thing that the internet has given to us in the last few years that I like.
Now, coming back.
While I am accustomed to most of what goes down, this last week was something else. Every single day until the 20th, I opened my Twitter and was bombarded with people’s Tweets about the Apple Store opening its doors for the first time in the country. The doors were better off shut, I think. And, it is not just me talking about the stores without paying a visit to see what was going on.
As soon as I walked in, I was greeted by the smiling faces of the employees. Nice. Everyone should smile when they get a chance to. While everyone was posting about everything that filled up the space, all I saw was the emptiness of a facade of the brand that is Apple. I mean, there were EIGHT rows filled with nothing but phones from the iPhone 14 lineup.
And, whenever we have any Western brand come down to empty our pockets, they have to add that ‘token of localisation’, right? Well, Apple for a change, also added something local – Today at Apple – Exclusive Mumbai Rising Sessions. What Mumbai Rising? Rising from their chair and strolling down to the store like zombies to spend all their money? I guess that’s what they hope. And, before you also start ‘rising’, let me tell you something, it is nothing different from what they have in other places. The last time our people fell for that token of speciality from a group of Westerners, we were colonised for 200 years.
Do not fall for it. I repeat, do not fall for it.
They advertise their Genius Bar. First of all, it is just a bait. There was no bartender there. Jokes aside. Well, can I put the jokes aside when they face stiff competition from reality? Anyway.
The Genius Bar is like that bit of cheese set in a mouse trap. You approach them with a simple request, and GOTCHA! The next thing you see is your credit card bill with a charge that would have gotten you a nice meal.
I see that my fellow writers, one of whom also went to the store a day before opening, have ramped up the Lo-Fi music on our communal speakers. And, the word counter is at 750 words. So, I think it is time. Last words before I submit this article – There’s nothing special at the Apple store. If you want, go, click pictures and make short videos about it and get views. Don’t step in. This Apple does not keep the doctor away.
Follow Us
