Disinterested iPod Guy

This weekend, I participated in a somewhat enlightening experiment on the prevalence and effectiveness of the iPod as a powerful social artifact. Actually, Saturday night, I was out for my bachelor party in downtown Manhattan. As the evening progressed, my friends and I astutely decided to begin crashing every single Halloween’s Eve Halloween party that we could possibly find. I think (if foggy memory serves me correctly) we managed five total.

Inevitably, at each of the five parties we crashed, I was confronted at multiple times with: “Where’s your costume?”

As I had my distinctive white earbuds in my ears, my answer was:
“I’m Disinterested iPod Guy.”

This was the point where I was surprised every single time. Instead of telling me that it was the lamest costume they’d ever seen, casting me from them as the false-Halloween-celebrator whom I was that evening—instead of that, they all welcomed me with comments like “That’s cool!” and at times really big laughs that were notably bigger than they would have normally been had I not had my handy reality-distorting-device on my hip: the iPod.

I’m no rookie to crashing parties. Back in my single days, my good friend Tom and I would regularly crash a party, make up entirely fake stories about ourselves, and spend the entire night talking to people and drinking free beer. We’ve even crashed Halloween parties in the past. I’ve always come uncostumed and when confronted with “Where’s your costume?,” I’ve retorted “I’m ‘I am from Some Country Where They Don’t Celebrate Halloween Guy’” or I’ve said “I’m an off duty mime” or some other lame excuse for not participating in the Halloween party costume ritual. Normally, people frown upon this, cough and look away, or get really angry and start asking pesky questions like, “Who do you know here?” or “Who invited you?”

Consider how powerful the iPod has become when it can carry this type of cultural power. Everyone rejoiced in my costume. Several people wanted to listen in to see if my music was better than the music at the party. When they would begin to bore me or ask questions I didn’t want to answer, I would pull an ear-bud from my left ear and say “What?” as if I hadn’t heard them. One girl thought it was the most charmingly witty move ever, laughing repeatedly whenever I went through that particular movement. But it wasn’t. What made it charming was the magic of the iPod.

I wonder how much more cultural power this guy or these people, who actually went to the trouble to construct elaborate iPod-themed costumes, had than me. My guess is none. The power is in the iPod brand. Good for Apple.

Next year, I think I may go as “Let me bore you with all the pictures of my wedding on my iPod Photo” Guy. People will laugh and giggle and exclaim “That’s great!” and ask to sit through the digital equivalent of a slideshow just because they will be enchanted by the power of that little white music box.