Category: General, Theory

Hail Ipod: How it conquered the college campuses

Walking to and from my classes I realize a huge trend in all the students that I see: they all have little white chords coming out of their ears and going into there pockets or back packs or hands that all contain *drum roll please* an ipod.

Why is the ipod so ridiculously popular with college students? Why does every person I see on campus have an ipod? Why do college students succumb to the power of the ipod?

Is the ipod an evil government plan to take over the youth of America?

I, of course, own an ipod. It’s truly scary how much I love and care for my ipod. He, yes he, is a pink mini ipod named Jess. Jess has an itrip and isocks (so that he won’t get cold and he can match every day to a color [there are 7 colors]) and ipod speakers so that everyone can listen to what he plays.

[this is Jess]

I am not the only one who spoils their ipod, many people I’ve talked to on campus love their ipods as much as I do.

“She’s (the ipod) my best friend, I take her everywhere with me,” said a girl I decided to follow when I saw the infamous white dangly chord.

“I take my ipod with me on all dates, and expect my date to as well so we can share our love for the ipod; and of course to see what songs we both like,” said a random guy that I stopped who was obviously part of the white dangly chord club (WDCC).

I think the reason why ipods are so popular amongst college students goes back to my lazy theory. College students are lazy and always try to find great ways to procrastinate. A great procrastination technique: listen to music, it prolongs everything. Back in the day people would walk around with there bulky walkmen (remember those? *shudder*). However, the students realized that it just wasn’t convenient enough, there was too much effort it carrying around such a bulky device.

Walkman could only carry one cd and if placed in ur back pack it’d skip or scratch. What were we to do?

But then one fine day in 2001, Apple came out with a celestial device: the ipod.

There were competing devices already out but apple used ingenious techniques of highspeed Firewire interfaces to transfer files, a cool spinny wheel and a tiny hard drive that made the ipod a quarter of the size of all the other poducts already out.

Fun fact: The iPod was almost not released by Apple. The products creator, Tony Fadell, had shopped the idea to Phillips and RealNetworks before proposing the idea to Apple. Fadell found a welcoming environment at Apple, who agreed almost immediately to produce and market the device.

So basically, the ipod is so powerful due to its capacity to hold so many songs (and now photos and video), its adorable and convneint appearance, and its coolness factor. The key with the ipod is convenience because college students flock towards whatever is most convenient.