You’ve probably heard by now or wondered why your iPhone screen suddenly began shedding digital tears, but Apple CEO Steve Jobs died Wednesday after a lengthy battle with cancer. And while the news gave us pause as genuinely sad (and also gave us guilty inspiration for dozens of computer-related death metaphors), what struck us most was how the “online community” reacted. By our estimation, 75 per cent of our Facebook “friends” felt the need to post condolences, meaningful quotes or other pithy remarks acknowledging Jobs’ passing and how he had a profound effect on their consumer-addicted lives beyond an aversion to wearing jeans and black turtleneck shirts. Tellingly, by Thursday morning, sincerity had turned to fatigue, which then transformed into sarcasm and detached irony, as people began complaining about the onslaught of Steve Jobs-related comments on Facebook or that “Pitchfork.com gives Steve Jobs’ death a 7.6.”
On Twitter, tweeting fools responded with a range of pointless, self-involved reactions from the benign (“RIP Steve Jobs”) to the suckily sweet (“I’ll see you in iHeaven”) to the tackily opportunistic (@CourtneyJackson “Steve Jobs was adopted. Glad his biological mother chose life? I am”) to the excruciatingly lame (@LoveBarRefaeli “3 Apples that changed the world: The one that Eve ate, The one that fell on Newton’s head and The one that Steve Jobs built”).
Steve Jobs’ death proved equally enticing to media outlets around the world where puns are like Viagra to headline writers who mined the depths of their souls to come up with such bon mots as “iSad,” “iMourn,” and “Apple turnover.” Actually, we may have made that last one up.
Regardless, this visionary man, whose omniscient, multi-billion-dollar company convinced us that we need to spend thousands of dollars buying and upgrading its products every year or else feel we’ve become woefully out of touch with the rest of the world, will be missed. Jobs well done. See, it’s that easy.
