I'm fearless. Want me to post it?

Wasn't it already posted and deleted?

Not really, and probably.

It was on the front page when I logged in this morning, and gone shortly thereafter.

Wow, deleted twice.

Is it debatable? It seems like everyone agrees that he was.

Yeah, I don't see much debate on the subject.

As the poster who tried the second time by expanding it from a SLOE to a look at all of Taibbi's "Supreme Court of Assholedom" pieces (which I consider better-than-the-usual-Taibbi), I was saddened but bemused. (Believe it or not, I DON'T get deleted often)

I joked on IRC at the Mod who deleted both posts that this revealed that he was a Jobs Lover, and he replied NOT NOW - today was apparently an extra rough day for the Keepers of the Filter. I would have enjoyed a face-off between the hardcore Taibbi Fanboys and Jobs Fanboys but the Mods obviously would not have.

I wouldn't want their jobs... especially if the Anti-Internet bills become law. (In my conspiracy-theory-prone moments, I imagine Police Departments using it to declare copyright on all citizen photos or videos of their activity, just to kill sites that show their abuses. Ridiculous? Maybe. Impossible? Sadly, no.)

If you read the recent biography, it seems that pretty much everyone who knew him and even Jobs himself acknowledged that he could be an asshole.

But even one of the 9 members of Taibbi's 'court' voted against declaring Jobs an Asshole. We all are assholes sometimes, some more than others, and often it's more than balanced out by the good you do. I commented in the original Jobs obit thread that I considered him one of the rare billionaires who contributed more than he took... and a couple days and a thousand comments in that thread later, rescinded that statement.

I welcome anything that isn't more Jobs hagiography.

Miko, I salute you for using the word hagiography.

I'm just glad I learned at some point that it doesn't mean "writing about hags."

Wait, Miko - what?

...

All those lost hours arguing with booksellers that Thomas Aquinas wasn't a hag. I need a drink.

I didn't realize Jobs made more money from investing in Pixar than he ever did by selling gadgets. Huh.

Yabbut BP, it was his money from the early gadget making that financed the Pixar thing. So it really was gadget money that made his movie money. It's called leveraging.

Miko, sorry that you hate the canonization of Steve Jobs so much. For me, I'm glad to have lived in a time so influenced by someone with his talents. Maybe as a person he was a complete asshole and wanker. That doesn't mean I shouldn't be impressed by his accomplishments, and the fact that all the online bitching and whining about what a dickhead he was is facilitated by technology he championed. At least he was one person, as much of an asshole he might have been, who cared about the experience of the end user. I never knew the man, don't care that I never did, but I'm glad he existed when he did. I like my Jobs influenced gadgets and movies.

I think he did have an impact on especially what you say, the end user. He was a designer first and foremost. I appreciate the gadgets as much as anyone, but every day people who do similar things and transform our lives for the better in myriad ways live and die without our notice. The icon-making the media did for him was a little over the top, I thought. I don't have a problem with memorializing him appropriately, but his revolution is still a consumer revolution, and I try to keep that in context.

I appreciate the gadgets as much as anyone, but every day people who do similar things and transform our lives for the better in myriad ways live and die without our notice.

Eh, this happens every day. Athletes are revered and mourned when they pass, and they have far less effect on most of our lives than Jobs did (even among people who have no idea who Jobs is). Who we admire or choose as inspiration is a personal thing. It's a little presumptuous to believe 'we' have a higher understanding on such things.

I had to look up hagiography, and thank you for the new word, but it doesn't fit at all. Even among jobs biggest supporters they admit his faults. His biography, if anything, is depressing in his faults. Jobs has gotten a ton of credit for his tech ideas, and though people like to debate if it's too little or too much, few doubt his influence. But no one is holding him up as a saint.

I don't mean to give you offense as you're entitled to revere him if you choose, but I think the coverage for him is a little over the top. You're right that society does this relatively arbitrarily and personally. For me, though, this is a business leader whose main innovation was in design. There's nothing wrong with that, but it's entirely as legitimate for me to say that I'm not interested in participating, or, in fact, revering consumer and branding heroes in general, as it is for others to enjoy the celebration of what they see as his accomplishments.

It's not so much that the coverage was one-note and entirely positive, because it wasn't, but that it was so pervasive at all, that got to me. It was frustrating that it dominated most of the media outlets I use for such a long time, and at such an important time for other historically significant events, and at a level of detail (his wardrobe, the way he conducted meetings) that was frankly just odd.

if nothing else, the Job's biography means everyone had to look up hagiography.


I maintain that the all-surrounding coverage was more to do with the fact that Jobs was, for good or ill, the Ideal for a certain group of people who I imagine are overwhelmingly involved in media at the editorial or management level.

f nothing else, the Job's biography means everyone had to look up hagiography.

And my work here is done.

I think there's a lot to that theory, Whelk. Those are the folks that can afford and most want the products, too.

HEY I used hagiography on twitter about this weeks ago !!111 (just kidding)

I was annoyed by the fawning over Steve Jobs too but I've realized that it's just part of the media cycle; as soon as Gladwell started saying some not-so-effusive things about what Steve Jobs said about Bill Gates' charity work I understood that he'll be put back into a perspective that's not dominated by Apple fans as time passes

True, true. Flavor of the moment factor.