Big, whining nerds: ‘SNL’ offers its take on iPhone complainers
Meow! “Saturday Night Live†has taken on the tech bloggers who complained about the iPhone 5, and it isn’t pretty.
If you’ve ever complained publicly about Apple’s latest smartphone, you may wish you hadn’t.
The skit offers some perspective on opinionated tech bloggers by introducing them to the people who actually made the phones they are complaining about: Peasant laborers in a Chinese factory.
It begins with host Christina Applegate in a blue suit and brown wig hosting a show called “Tech Talk.â€
She asks three fictional panelists from real-life tech blogs CNET, Wired and Gizmodo to talk about the glitches and problems in the iPhone 5.
You’ve heard these before, and that’s the point. One panelist discusses the failure that is Apple Maps. Another talks about the weird purple light that shows up in pictures taken with the phone’s camera when the light source is right outside the camera’s view. And the third, says the phone is just too thin and too light.
“I know we asked for a thinner, lighter phone, but this feels like three pieces of paper stapled together,†he says.
Then we meet the three Chinese workers who built the phone, and who are invited to reply to the tech bloggers’ complaints.
They agree that Apple Maps is glitchy, and then say they must be lucky, because they sleep where they work, so they don’t need maps.
One says he’s sorry that apps such as Angry Birds load slowly -- and he knows all about angry birds because recently a chicken tried to steal his lunch. And in response to one of the bloggers saying that he waited in line for six hours to get his phone, a third factory workers said she waited in line for 21 days to get formula for her baby.
The venom of the skit is diluted a bit because none of the actors who play the factory workers are Chinese, and they all speak in a stereotypical Chinese accent, but the message still hits home.
Especially when Applegate’s character asks the workers if there is any American product they would like to complain about.
“Let’s see, what does America make?†says one of the factory workers played by Fred Armisen. “Does diabetes count? If not, let me get back to you.â€
P.S. If you don’t have time to watch the whole five-minute clip, you might skip to 3:52, when one worker gets out a “sad Chinese violin†and another one gets up to do a “traditional sarcastic dance†while one of the bloggers discusses how easy it is to scratch the iPhone 5’s screen.
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