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No responsibility will be accepted by the author for the wastage of your valuable time whilst reading this. Any claims that she has forced you to visit this site in order to inflate her ego will go ignored, and will only go to show your vulnerability to the author's exceptional persuasive skills as developed in Year 12 English. That is all.

Bonne vivante. Raconteur. Procrastinator.

Following my victory (GO ROSSLYN!! WOOOOO!!) in Senior House JMAPS and the absence of any invitation to present my speech in assembly in front of almost two thousand eyes belonging to my peers, who would judge me and wait mercilessly for any humiliating mistake (not that I'm complaining), I feel obliged, nay, forced to share my bitter and caustic thoughts about the global pandemic: iPods.

iPods. Who doesn’t know what they are? But I have to admit that despite their ubiquity and ‘style’, they bug me to deaf, pardon the pun.

iPods are nothing but a fad right now, like yoyos and Tamagotchis. For example, some time last year, I spotted in the newspaper that the Queen herself has a blue iPod. Now, I doubt her majesty would really buy an iPod so she can shake it like a Polaroid picture. What would she put on it? Mozart? That’s hard to believe, because she can buy a personal orchestra with her multi-national empire. It’s simply because of the fad, to be a hip and happenin’ grandma.

In fact, it’s like a club. When you actually take a look around, you see them everywhere, with sightings more common than sightings of Elvis and Mother Theresa. The owners give each other knowing glances on the tram and wear their white headphones like badges of honour. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had a secret handshake. When my friend Nancy got one, it was simply agonizing. It wasn’t long for Ali, the owner of two iPods, to pull out her own white ear buds and notice: “Nancy! You finally got an iPod! Oh my god! How many gigabytes? What’s on your playlist?”

Everyone began to crowd around her, bringing along their own iPods and the person attached to the other end. Soon the whole crowd was excitedly chatting about how awesome they are, except me. “Hey Mel, are you going to get one?” they ask me with both bewilderment and pity. In other words, “Hey Mel, when are you going to succumb and join our cult?”

Yes, poor me was left alone in the corner. Because I haven’t brought myself to worship their iPods, I am left out of the loop and literally ostracized. In fact, am I the only one in the country that doesn’t have one? Apparently, about a million or so exist in Australia alone, but judging by the number I see on the tram everyday, it’s got to be more than that.

It’s not the numbers that are cringe-worthy, however. Obsession is. Most iPod owners talk how they’re “really really really extreme with their iPods”, although I don’t think I know what to make of that. Just recently, my friend Jess had her iPod stolen. Granted, it is painful to lose $500, but the way she reacted, I quote, “as if I had lost a family member... I’m so lost because someone took the thing that made my life worthwhile. Cry for me!”… It was a bit overboard.

But really, their relationships seem much more deep and meaningful than sticking plastic into their ears. With the zeal of a religious convert, some claim that “When I broke up with my boyfriend, I put my iPod on random play and the first track it selected was I will Survive. How spooky is that?” Enough said. However, iPods are truly style over substance. All over the place, I see people raving about how gorgeous the minimalist design is, and watch as they caress the touch wheel with such zeal that I’m afraid that they’ll develop those ‘1c text side effects’.

iPods are simply overrated. If I had a cent for every iPod that has blown up, exploded or smelt ominously like smoke, I’d have enough to take over Apple. Not that I’d want to, of course. Furthermore, with the amount of features and the price, it simply is not worth it. Who would want to pay $500 for an iPod when they can get a $300 version with even more features and breaks down less often? Because of the obsessive ubiquity and unreliability of the iPod, I think I’ll opt out and get a Tamagotchi instead.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to give a shout out to Bryony Gordon of the Telegraph, who wrote almost half the material there. Yes, I just pinched it in a desperate bid to finish the speech 10 minutes before JMAPS began. Ah, the disorganisation and last-minute-ness of PLC house events is simultaneously refreshing and excruciatingly stressful. Also, I'd like to take this opportunity to give an ol' plug to my iRiver. How iLove my iRiver.

-iMel

Labels: Entertainment, Rants, Society

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