First. Nancy, please. I do ask my undergraduate students to call me Dr. Baym, but no one else. Except in jest.

And on a more substantive note, I think one element of Apple fandom is that their design has such powerful aesthetic appeal (ie it’s not just that they make a great product, it’s that they make gorgeous objects that people want to touch and gaze at even when they’re not in use). People don’t just like their macs and ipods and soon iphones, they LOVE them (did you not feel desire when you saw what the iphone looks like? didn’t we all?). Part of what Apple does is use the aesthetic to connect to people at an emotional level, and that’s where loyalty turns in to fandom. Because when you love something, you want to talk about it, and you want to talk to other people who love it too and find new things you can do that might make you love it more (or delight in having someone who’s also upset by some geeky tiny detail that no one else could bear to hear you go on about).

Think you’re right about the marginalization element too.

One market where the largest and most powerful companies were, and to some degree still are, sources a large fan cultures is the auto industry. At least in the US, among buyers of US-based cars and trucks, there is brand loyalty that easily fits under the umbrella of fandom. Many buyers of Ford pickup trucks would never, ever, drive a Chevy, but I don’t see either company as the underdog here. My personal impression is that this segment of auto culture has been in decline since the 70s, but its definitely still present.

Does Windows even have the kind of hardcore devotees that you see jumping in to defend Macs?

Among software developers, there are definitely active communities that are promoting a Windows Is Better message. It may be less visible than that of consumers, both because of the limited social scope of developer communities and the greater variety of options for development (its not just the OS platform, but also the toolset that is being carved into market share).

The greater fandom present among developers for Windows may show another ingredient in your recipe for fandom. For a lot of end-users, one of the characteristics of using a Mac is that its done by choice. PCs are the reasonable default for a lot of people, but if you’re using a Mac its because you want to. Developers, who have greater flexibility in their choices of platform, are then in a situation where they can choose Windows for their own reasons. This might explain why otherwise fine products don’t inspire the same fandom that Apple and others seem to be able to produce.

I guess what I meant is that the fact that some of Apple’s customers are so passionate comes from the fact they are very satisfied. It’s true that all “very satisfied” customers won’t be involved in the online Mac community (although nearly all of the real-word, non-geek Mac users I know do promote the Mac pretty heavily to their friends and relatives).

I think pretty much all of the reasons you bring up are parts of the puzzle… the marginalization of the platform, I think, is definitely the source of the Mac community. When people sense they are in some kind of danger, of threatened by an “enemy”, they do stick together more and are definitely more vocal about it. While Microsoft has proved to me less of the big threat they were before, the community is already born and it thrives.

Great article, you definitely trump me and Blackfriars here. I think it’s well worth a follow-up on MacUser… Stay tuned.

Would Mac fans change if Apple were in the top place? Maybe. Did some Red Sox fans lose interest after they won the World Series? Sure. I haven’t followed baseball nearly as closely since that point (though I might also attribute that to narrative structure; it seemed very much like the end of the story—the same way Star Wars ends with the Rebels beating the Empire). So if Apple finally “won” and dethroned Microsoft (which I think unlikely, despite being a Mac fanboy, zealot, what-have-you), perhaps the partisanship would become less rabid; then again, perhaps Apple would merely become the Empire to someone else’s (Linux’s?) rebellion.