Hurry Up and Wait

In the beginning of his book Convergence Culture, Henry Jenkins cautions against the "black box fallacy" and the idea that a single gadget will get rid of the need for other specialized technologies. A similar caution is implicit in this fake iPhone ad from college pal Conan O'Brien's show. New York Times technology columnist David Pogue has also gotten into the act by incorporating parody elements into his video review. For purposes of the historical record, however, I diligently had to document people camped out in line for the iPhone in my Santa Monica neighborhood the day before the device goes on sale.

Okay, I will admit to watching the Apple iPhone infomercial several times to study its rhetorical appeals, but I'm not going to be lining up for the device any time soon.

Perhaps there's a more interesting local story about the politics and sociality of cellular telephones in "States struggle to thwart inmates' cellphone use." Apparently schools aren't the only public institutions attempting to regulate ubiquitous communication.

Update: A story in The Los Angeles Times, "Proxies clog iPhone lines," reports that many of the people in line are the assistants of the beautiful people in the entertainment industry or wealth management who want to acquire a status item on the first day and who have underlings willing to do menial labor for "brownie points." Famed scholar of digital politics, Bruce Bimber, even comments in the article. As Bimber says, "It's like seeing a hit movie on the first day it comes out."