Comment: Apple should not have changed "You can't be too thin" tag-line for the iMac

Because you can be too politically correct

24 August 2007 17:48 GMT / By Amy-Mae Elliott

"What kind of message is Apple sending our youth with an ad campaign of this nature? The truth is one CAN be too thin."

Coming straight atcha from the "taking it far too literally" department is the Alliance for Eating Disorders Awareness, up in arms earlier in the week that Apple should use the slogan, "You can't be too thin. Or too powerful" as a tag-line for the new iMacs.

Sheesh guys really, go and hand out leaflets to girls buying fashion mags filled with too-skinny air-brushed celeb and models pics, or spend time fixing your spell check before the next press release - repeatedly referring to Apple's angle on the new desktop offerings the "new IMAC Campaign" isn't going to win you any allies in the tech world.

Apple's latest slogan is not designed to brainwash teen Americans into resisting that extra squirt of squ-EZE cheese, but is a reference to Wallis Simpson's famous: "A woman can't be too rich or too thin".

The pithy quote, from the American divorcee that Edward VIII abdicated the British throne for, is a part of 20th century social history, and subverting it is a witty - and relevant - comment on the new iMacs.

Customers want thinner, sleeker, lighter consumer electronics - for very different reasons that troubled teenage girls may want to change their body shape - and the new iMac's oh-so-slim dimensions is a legitimate USP for the machines.

I'm sorry to report that Apple bowed to the pressure and the message now reads: "The all new, all-in-one iMac". They did not issue a response to the complaint, perhaps taking heed of another Wally quote: "Never explain, never complain"...