Hi, I'm a PC...and I'm a self-righteous, annoying little hoodie-wearing slacker hipster bitch

Great article in Slate recently about those "I'm a Mac...and I'm a PC" ads that are all over my television and my computer lately.

At first glance, I thought these ads were pretty clever. They're low-key, brand-appropriate (how did Apple somehow brand the color white and the concept of space?), and get across the basic idea that Macs are easier to use than PCs, while PCs are still the primary computers of real (read: boring, unhip) businesspeople.

But, as suggested in the article -- Mac Attack: Apple's Mean-spirited New Campaign, by Seth Stevenson -- there's something else happening here, which is most likely making these ads a little less effective, or perhaps more effective (at playing to popular notions about the two systems and their users, that is) than Apple intended.

The thing is this: that Mac kid comes off as kind of a sanctimonious little hipster poser prick. Exactly the kind of person your stereotypical PC user -- who is, we have to assume, the audience for this ad -- would cite as an example of why a Mac is in fact not a reasonable alternative to the PC. Which is kind of odd, given that the Mac is played by the same dude who played a geek really successfully in Dodgeball and the TV series Ed.

Anyway, the argument goes something like this: the only people who use Macs are graphic designers, hipster posers who don't know what they're doing, and fictional people on television enjoying the benefits of product placement.

The PC is played by John Hodgeman, a writer and Daily Show contributor and exactly the kind of person who might actually be able to persuade smart, busy, wannabe hip PC-users to reconsider the Mac.

While all the conceits of the ads are familiar -- Macs are better for music, videos, and flirting with pretty women who are playing the role of "my new Japanese camera" -- are any of these things really persuasive arguments why one should buy a Mac? Sounds like it can do what my stereo, mp3 player, and television already do.

So let me get this straight: I can buy a Mac to replicate what all of the things I already have do already, and then all I'll need is something to do my computer work on, like writing and keeping track of shit and accessing the Internet.

Don't get me wrong. I actually like the ads, and I've considered getting a Mac in the past. But for now, they just make me feel that, if Hodgeman is the PC and that kid from Ed, all scruffied up and hipper-than-thou, is the Mac, I'm pretty much good to go with my PC. After all, dude, to quote a past computer pitchman who I really couldn't stand, I got a Dell.