How a Q-anon video made me switch to iPhone

Q-anon is a complicated entity. The mostly-digital group demonstrates collective mistrust of government and public institutions. Its followers live in every state and hold “real” jobs. Better understanding Q helps us empathize with Americans who fight on different sides of the “ideological and spiritual” war we currently face.

A video explaining Q-anon fascinated me this week, and may have indirectly sold me an iPhone.

Channel 5’s Andrew Callaghan interviewed Jake Angeli (aka the Q-anon Shaman from J6) about his life, the events at the capitol, his current incarceration, and the history-based beliefs of Q-anon members.

The interview is sprawling and well crafted. Andrew operates with a reasonable journalistic lens while giving Jake Angeli mostly genuine sincerity. The varied background music and the homey interview space create a comforting normal-core scene.

Somehow the interview has a sleekness to it. I believe that’s partially a credit to the Apple products shown while Mr. Angeli, who is currently serving a 41-month term in prison, speaks.

There’s an iconography to the iPhone, and Channel 5 uses that to elevate the conversation. The indirect message I felt from the video was — important, meaningful conversations happen on an iPhone. This reiterated an indirect message from Virgil Abloh’s 2017 Harvard Lecture: iPhones are beautiful objects that help democratize creativity.

Advertising tends to roll right off of me these days. I rarely fall victim to paid ad campaigns and most corporate positioning rings hollow to me. Like a lot of Gen-Z, I watch entertaining content on social media platforms. My digital diet includes YouTube (45min per day), LinkedIn (25min per day), and Instagram (20min per day).

Apple has been unable to reach me with ad campaigns and even their corporate positioning isn’t positive in my circles. My Google-retired relatives might influence my thinking. While I get occasional grief from co-workers or family about not having an iPhone, new creatives' affiliation to the iPhone is what swayed my opinion.

I’d be interested in an Oppo Find N1, if they were legal for purchase in America.

However, there’s an identity and creativity associated with using an iPhone. It's because of work like this.