Hey guys.
We iPhone users have gotten a lot of heat lately over this whole Instagram thing. The outcry was read around the world, in the form of tweets and facebook posts. A lot of my fellow iPhone users have been ridiculed and as you read this are probably being persecuted in a whole foods parking lot somewhere. I’d like to take a moment to welcome you to see our side of the story.
Now, let me assure you that I am more than qualified to speak for this group. I am a hip 20-something who lives in the gentrified neighborhood of a city that is slowly loosing it’s identity and grit. Right now, I’m listening to a band that you’ve probably never heard of while browsing Etsy.com and drinking PBR. I know their struggles, and most of all, I understand their plight as a people who have been swiftly displaced from their last exclusive haven. Except for Bon Iver concerts of course. Oh, and Urban Outfitters. And the Apple Store. And Etsy.com. And Portland, Oregon.
If you haven’t heard yet, Instagram has been made available through the Android App store. I’ll let you absorb that information for a moment (you can hear those Android using pricks on the Jawncast talk about it here).
That’s right. Android users. Using our Instagram! And if anybody knows anything about Android users, they are the poorest, most pathetic people on Earth!
I’m not saying I’m necessarily better than Android users, or that I don’t want them around. Without poor people, there would be no one around to collect my trash, bag my groceries, or sweep the salon floor free of hair after I’ve had an ironic haircut. And maybe we had this coming. After all, we totally store bobos from poor people. Be that the case or not, I still don’t want to see what they’ve had for dinner. Can you even imagine the horrors we will be subjected too when those stupid simps figure out how to use the damn thing?
Take for example the following two pictures. The first is some super delicious $13 mac and cheese I had in the San Francisco Bay Area. Because I am a hip 20-something, I’m pretty sure you give a flying fuck what I ate on my vacation.
Now, consider the same picture, but on an Android user’s budget:
And if that’s not jarring enough, consider what else they will take pictures of from their section 8 houses in the only part of Brooklyn we haven’t taken over (yet).
Even still, there’s the issue that hasn’t even been presented yet. How bad are poor people going to feel when they scroll through their instagram accounts and see the pictures of things I have that they can’t afford? From my antique fixie to my vintage Keds, there are so many awesome things I’ll be taking pictures of that will surely drive Android users to sadness, as they realize their sepia tinted pictures will never own up to my sepia tinted pictures.
I don’t know. Maybe we are wrong in being so angry about “poor” people being able to use a free app. Maybe owning a $600 piece of technology that wasn’t made by Steve Jobs doesn’t make you a degenerate. Maybe thinking that anyone who doesn’t own an iphone lives in section 8 housing, or that all poor people are somehow lesser than I am makes me a bad person. But hey, I’m not here to judge. I only hope to educate. To give a voice to a people that have been kept silent for so long, who have felt the sting of oppression worse than the sting of that owl, cherry blossom, or feather tattoo they go on their back.
I just hope you’ll take pity on us, now that you’ve heard our side of the story. Till then, I’ll remain an iPhone apologist, drawing a mustache on my index finger.