Whereas the previous, more colorful incarnation of the iMac was an awkward status symbol at best ("Hey, you have an iMac?" "Um ... yeah."), the new iMac is a signal of a divergent pursuit from the middle-income earning American's "Quest for Excess," formerly the predominant obsession of every Smith and Johnson.
The "Quest for Excess," or Q for E, is best explained as the fusion of the male ego, the counter-intuitive concept of spending money that you don't have and free weekly garbage pickup.
Um ... what?
To help illustrate my point, take America's bastion of fast food, McDonald's, which can be considered a fair barometer of tastes of the average American.
Way back when, fast food was gnarly because you could get food fast and feel American because you weren't standing in some evil Communist bread line.
However, when America became "health-conscious," its tastes appeared to change, and fast food marketers scrambled to put a spin on their decidedly unhealthy offerings by selling the concept of the "meal" -- which in later days, became what us '80s babies consider the "combo."
Today, we have the ludicrous option of "super-sizing" an already unbelievably large, heaping serving of fast-fried death -- an option that is so unconsciously appealing that one wonders what exactly makes it feel good to say "Yes, super-size it."
Of course it feels good to say, "Yes, super-size it" because the male ego clearly dictates "bigger is better." Hence the popularity of large metal penises with four wheels that secretly go by the name of "SUV."
Not to mention that super-sizing only costs you a few extra cents. After all, you have that money to spend, and you're good at spending money you don't have on the things you really need, like a very, very, very green lawn.
