Why is it people just have to “go with the flow”? Actually, while I think about it, that’s a silly statement, as there are so many people in the world that you cant help but go with the flow. Even those who are supposedly “going against the grain” are in fact doing nothing more than going along with all the other millions of people doing that self same thing. Perhaps a little more needs adding to that then. Perhaps it should read “why do people have to go with the flow without knowing which way it is flowing, let alone why its flowing that way”.

This rather neatly brings me onto the ipod (question my judgment you may, but if I don’t get distracted for the next 10 mins all will be revealed). Now the ipod is a wonderful product, have no fear ipod lovers, I have little in the way of problems with it (bar the ipod nano, but most people should have problems with by now). It is for the most part a very nice little bit of technology wrapped up in a box that most people seem to nye-on faint over. What however I do hate in leaps and bounds is your typical ipod owner. Now although I have not seen any demographics charts for the sales (well, end users) of ipods, I think I can make a fairly educated guess that there are a good number of teens and adults in their early twenties with them bashing against their leg in their trouser pockets. Your typical ipod owner seems to think that they hold the solution to all the worlds problems in the palm of their hand. I regularly see posts in forums saying merely “get an ipod” when people are talking about a completely different mp3 (well, music is more fitting) player. Do they not understand that this is not the greatest invention since sliced bread, just a fairly featureless hard drive that costs more because its white and has fruit on it.

Myself I think apple is no longer the same from this ordeal. From what it has gained in popularity and sales, I think it has lost in diluting its own brand and removing some of the “class” and exclusivity that has surrounded the company for years. Now a few years ago, they got away with it because apple were not quite ready for the impact the ipod would have when it was released upon the masses so they were quite hard to come by. But as apple has sold more of the little white bundles of joy, they cease to fill people with amazement when they see them. Now of course the rose tinted glasses have begun to come off and people have started to see that there are better, more advanced, more interesting players out there on the market. They have now started to see the ipod for what it really is, a very nice looking mp3 player, but nothing more. It can’t even claim the “style icon” badge anymore, as to be stylish, you have to “go against the grain”, not with the masses. This just leaves us with probably over a million people trying to hold on to “the glory days” of the ipods early life, thinking they still have a style icon, thinking they are still being the rebel and gone against the grain when they are in fact just “going with the flow”.