Macheads
Macheads (Link goes to iTunes Store) is a new documentary about the cult of Macintosh. It’s short and horrifying. Any documentary that begins with a dude gleefully telling us that the “mac is the reason [he] has no wife” pretty much guarantees a strange time.
It’s reminiscent of Trekkies, the 1997 documentary about Star Trek fanatics. The difference is that Trekkies showcased insane people who were still lovable and fairly harmless. Macheads features people who are pretty much just insane.
Some well-known mac industry pundits and talking heads are interviewed — people like Guy Kawasaki, for instance. And then large numbers of bizarre mac nerds are showcased. One fellow is wearing what he describes as a “Tech Kilt”. There is a hippie lady and her hubby who have a computer museum in a barn. This makes me realize that the difference between Windows nerds and Mac nerds is weed, and plenty of it.
Like I said, the documentary is short — only about 60 minutes. It feels a bit disjointed as well. It can’t decide whether to structure itself based on interviews and its subjects’ individual stories or on Apple’s historical timeline, and the narrative quickly breaks down. For instance, about two thirds of the way through it talks about Steve Jobs’ triumphant return to Apple without ever previously mentioning how he was forced out of the company. A layperson with no Apple background would be totally confused.
A good documentary tells a story and has a narrative. King of Kong and Wordplay are both excellent examples of this. They develop their subjects biographically and tell a story about the challenges they face, finally presenting unexpected outcomes for each person. Macheads just presents peoples’ opinions about the Mac — usually “I LOVE IT”, and leaves it at that. The documentary felt like a short dip in a very shallow pool.
They did dig up some impressive weirdoes though. Strange, mind-wandering hippies, mac-obsessed basement dwellers, etc.. The kind of people that Fake Steve Jobs would call “Mactards”. The kind of people that Real Steve Jobs would quickly walk past and zoom away from in his unmarked Mercedes SL.
This documentary does one thing that is very impressive — something that Microsoft and its cheesy “I’m a PC” ad campaign has been unable to do: It makes me want to switch to Windows.
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