Earliest Adopters Or An Organic Agenda?
We like waiting for stuff. Not being patient, but the actual physical act of waiting. For stuff. As individuals and as a nation, the British are closet fans of queueing. All the things we love, the camaraderie, a common thing to complain incessantly about, and the ability to be incredibly nosey about strangers, in one place? So there.
Which is why these people at the front of the iPhone 3G queue in New York are so frustrating. Despite it not being released until July 11th, we at Omio admired their idiocy/blind faith for getting in line a week early, complete with baby in tow. It made us even more proud when they stated they wanted to get in the Guinness Book of Records for the longest time in a queue, despite knowing full well people waited far longer for Star Wars tickets.
As time has gone on, the media attention increased and hopes for their genuine fanboyism were dashed when they said they were going to “purchase phones for Barack Obama and John McCain”. Imagine our dismay at those taking something as pure and wholesome as waiting for an interminable amount of time for gadgets, and making it political.
According to the Guardian, they are representatives of ‘environmental collective’ 
TheWhoFarm, bandying the phrase “Waiting For Apples” around a lot. A LOT. Their site of the same name illustrates their goals of…handing out apples and talking about organic farming. So much so sane, until reading their grand plan and our faith in their mentalness was restored.
They want to persuade the 44th President of the US to transform the White House’s 17-acre lawn into an organic farm. Yeah, they hadn’t thought this one through at all.
Phew! We were worried they weren’t kooks for a minute, and might well have used this moment in the spotlight to take issue with the consumerist nature of the West, the authoritarian nature of Apple’s business strategy, or effect some actual change. And Brits feel the exact opposite about change as we do about queues.
However, they have managed to get 400 words about organic apples on this mobile phone site, just by sitting in front of a building half way across the planet. Maybe they aren’t kooky, just very savvy as to what grabs the headlines these days…
Source: Textually
