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Hunter S. Thompson’s Apple history

by on26 June 2017


1990s advert had a cool back-story

In the 1990s, before Apple adverts were twee, the outfit attempted to get some street cred by hiring rouge hack Hunter S. Thompson for one of its commercials.

The advert was a whirlwind of cuts, oddly angled shots, shaky camerawork, and edgy guitar riffs and the great gonzo journo himself. The commercial’s premise was that Thompson knew what power was, and how to use it to stick it to The Man.

But the advert was somewhat strange in that it failed to mention Apple, or its products at all. The advert works because it simply having Thompson in the ad gave Apple enough kudos.

However according to Open Culture the real reason Apple was not mentioned was because  Thompson had a long history of hating Apple and was doing the advert for the money.

In the 1980s Thompson’s had received a Mac from the editors of the San Francisco Examiner. The Examiner hoped that the fruity Mac would help Thomspon transmit his perennially late copy to the paper on time.

However, Thompson found the Mac infuriating and incredibly unreliable. After losing one too many stories to the fruity toy he took it out the back and blew the machine's smug brains out with his shotgun, and sent the remains to his editors. Having used an early Mac, I can sympathise. Normally, though, it would blow itself up without needing a firearm.

Knowing this back story look at the advert now.

Last modified on 26 June 2017
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