Why 2024 won’t be like 2024

“Flock” could go down in history as a seminal moment in technology, much as the most famous advert in the world, their “1984” Super Bowl ad did. 

It is an updating and sharpening of the same message, with the same artistic flair, creativity and production values as 1984, again tapping into popular culture, (this time Alfred Hitchcock’s The Birds instead of George Orwell’s 1984 novel), the exact same way. 

Flock, captures the zeitgeist of today – the erosion of trust, the rise of the algorithm and the increasingly intimate role of technology in society, the growing fear and wariness in consumers in their digital engagement and the sense that you are “just a number.” 

“1984” tapped into a cultural anxiety of the early eighties of a dystopian and conformist future. 

It was the Cold War, the Evil Empire and Star Wars. Technology was seen as a force of control and aggression. It was Reagan and Thatcher and the reduction of humans to resources through the breaking of the unions. 

Apple’s Macintosh, launched in the advertisement, is the tool that empowers rebellious individuals to strike back against oppressive Big Brother by using Apple Macintosh instead of PCs. 

This 2024 ad updates that same message for a new age but where Apple’s mission remains as relevant – expressly connected by Apple at WWDC who used the tagline AI for the Rest of Us, just like the Macintosh was the Computer for the Rest of Us. 

The same paralysing fears pervade the culture in 2024 – Surveillance Capitalism, Authoritarian systems, loss of individual dignity and freedoms… even more amplified by events in America recently and Flock taps into that the same way 1984 did a generation ago. 

And like the role of Macintosh in delivering more human computing, Apple’s Flock advert shows us how iPhone continues that mission – why 2024 won’t be like 2024 if you will. 

Alternatives exist. 

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