I’m reading Yann Martel’s Life of Pi right now, and at one point he notes the tendency of people to anthropomorphise animals - we think of animals totally in human terms (hey, I do it to Coconut and Rerun all the time). And I think we do it even when we buy things.
For instance, every now and then I’ll chance upon a blog entry that will say, to the effect, “the Creative Zen clearly has more features, and I’m ashamed to admit I bought the iPod solely based on looks”. But why be embarrassed? Surely the idea that you shouldn’t judge based on looks is an idea that should apply only to people - or animals? Whose feelings are hurt if one judges an item based on looks?
(We assume, of course, that the objects being compared both don’t have any technical flaws, just that one is better-looking and one is feature-laden.)
Speaking of good-looking, the new Apple iPod Nano looks gorgeous. I’m very pleased about my MP3-playing cellphone (512MB’s good enough for my needs), and I can’t figure out why I might need something more - I have gadget overload - but it looks great.
anthropomorphism.org, Carnegie Mellon’s study on the subject